


Where monsters lie...

by Talraven



Category: Batman: Arkham (Video Games)
Genre: Abduction, Alpha Jason Todd, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Background Polyamory, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, DCU Big Bang 2019, Extremely Dubious Consent, Graphic and Implied Torture, Hate Speech, I'm Not Ashamed, Intersex Characters, JayDick switches though so..., Light Bondage, Lots of creative liberty taken with comics canon, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Bruce Wayne, Omega Dick Grayson, Pseudo-Incest, Rough Sex, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, and games canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-10-24 11:17:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 60,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20705111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talraven/pseuds/Talraven
Summary: Oracle loses communication with Batman and Nightwing during a mission gone wrong. With Red Robin in Jump City and Robin away on a camping trip with the Kents, she enlists the help of Red Hood to find them.Red Hood is reluctant but grudgingly concerned.He does not like what he finds when he tracks down hisleastfavourite vigilantes.In other words; what the author likes to pretend happened at the end of Arkham Knight (and a bunch of other stuff in between).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever official Big Bang and I'm so happy I actually managed to get it done <s>barely</s> on time! Additional details of the story are in the chapter notes, but first-
> 
> Special thanks to [Cuzosu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cuzosu/pseuds/Cuzosu) for helping me through a block at the end and listening to me whine like a bitch about it 😂 (she has her own entry too, check out [**A Bit(e) Wild**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20561195), it's goddamn cute and precious!). 
> 
> Also thanks to the Big Bang mods for being the nicest, most helpful and enabling people I have ever met in any fandom ever 😂! I've had a lot of fun <s>and torment</s> these past few months and I really appreciate the experience!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘---’ indicate time skips while page breaks are the start and end of flashbacks.
> 
> Also, the short explanation of how non-trad ABO dynamics work in this verse is:
> 
> 1\. Everyone has two sets of genitals except for alphas. Nobody knows about other people's genders unless the information is offered (it's considered rude to ask).
> 
> 2\. Everyone goes through a 7-day heat cycle every two and a half months, but each dynamic (or individual in general) experiences it differently. Heats can be offset by sex or physical affection of any kind.
> 
> 3\. 90% of alphas are sterile and can't impregnate anyone. They do, however, have high sex drives during heats.
> 
> 4\. There's no such thing as incest in this society <s>because I said so</s>.

Jason’s grumbling quietly to himself as he jumps from rooftop to dilapidated rooftop across the Narrows on an otherwise perfect night in Gotham City.

He’d muted his comm link so Barbara wouldn’t hear him, but she’s always liked to prove that her Oracle name isn’t just for show, and seems to be reading his mind when she chides him with, [**Dick wouldn’t be complaining if it were you in their situation**.]

“Dickhead wouldn’t be bothering to look for me in the first place,” Jason responds with a roll of his eyes, even though she can’t hear him.

[**He’d drop everything if I told him you were in danger**.]

Jason almost stumbles as he lands over a ledge. He checks his comms, and yeah, he’s still muted, so _ that _ isn’t fucking weird at all. 

“Stop that,” he snaps testily as he unmutes his line.

[**Stop what**?] Oracle asks in an exaggeratedly innocent tone, and Jason grunts in annoyance.

“I’m almost there okay, stop nagging me about it. What am I supposed to be looking out for anyway?”

[**Dick sent me encryption codes for Penguin’s safe last I heard from him**. **Find Penguin’s vault in the warehouse and look for clues there**.]

Jason lands on a low building just east of the coordinates Barbara had sent him, and frowns to himself as he stares at nothing. “Are you sure you gave me the right location?”

[**Of course I’m sure**,] Barbara responds, sounding almost insulted. [**Why**? **What did you find**?]

“That’s the problem,” Jason says, jumping off the roof and onto the street below. 

There’s only a vast, empty space where the warehouse is supposed to be, flanked on either side by other run-down buildings. It doesn’t look like the empty lot has been used in years from the looks of the rusty, broken fence, to the overgrown weeds everywhere. 

“There’s nothing here _ to _ find.”

[**That’s impossible**. **How do you move a whole building in less than three hours**?]

Jason’s checking the corners of the lot, running his hands along the side of the building to its right. It just feels like ordinary bricks, but when Jason looks down at the ground, there are scratches in the concrete and dirt there, like something huge and rough had been dragged along it.

The same pattern seems to repeat all along the side of the building, and Jason drops to his haunches, digging his fingers between the perimeter of the lot and the bottom of the building. Sure enough, there’s the slightest of gaps between them, wide enough for only the tips of his gloved fingers to push through.

“Can you pull up building plans for the area?” Jason asks, straightening from his crouch.

[**Give me a second**.]

Jason’s phone beeps exactly a second later, and he scrolls through the files she’d sent as she gives him a running commentary.

[**The building to your left was a barber shop that went out of business twenty years ago and the one on your right was a florist**, **also shut down around the same time**. **The lot you’re standing on was a storehouse owned by a mining company that went bankrupt in the seventies**. **The Cobblepots bought it** **then**, **but never developed it**. **It’s still owned by the Penguin**, **as far as records show**.]

The blueprints Barbara had sent indicated a building where the empty lot is, presumably the storehouse she’d mentioned. There hadn’t been any changes since the City Council had approved fire safety renovations in 1971, which included an obvious lack of demolition consent from them. So if the building hadn’t been torn down, it’s still there, _ somewhere. _

“Thanks,” Jason mutters, pocketing his phone and making his way to the rear of the lot.

[**What are you going to do**?]

“Blueprints show the buildings are connected to each other from the basement. You _ don’t _ move a whole building, Oracle. You just hide it from plain sight. Trust me, I’m a professional.”

[**Alright**, **but be careful**,] Barbara says, sounding amused and wary at the same time. [**Tim’s five hours away if I lose you too**.]

“Aw, didn’t know you cared that much.”

The end of the lot drops down to a ledge overlooking a lower street behind it, and Jason scales the ledge to the back of the barber shop, where there’s a backdoor. He kicks it down easily, and switches on the night vision in his helmet as he enters the pitch-black building.

[**Just don’t get into too much trouble**, **Jason**,] Barbara sighs, and then there’s a telltale click of her comms signing out.

The entrance to the basement is right in front of the door, conveniently enough, and Jason makes his way down the stairs quickly, drawing one of his guns just in case.

Besides a whole bunch of cobwebs and a couple of rats scuttling between his feet - which, _ gross _, ugh; Dick and Bruce are really gonna owe him for this - he doesn’t run into any trouble. There’s nothing in the basement either, not really. Just a bunch of dusty boxes and pieces of garbage and broken furniture.

Jason makes his way to the wall that faces the direction of the empty lot, and holsters his gun before running his hands against the grimy bricks. He knocks on a couple of them, but none of them sound hollow. It’s not until he reaches a corner where metal pipes run across the ceiling on one side that he sees the dust on the ground there has been disturbed.

There’s a rectangular shape of relatively cleaner ground than the rest of the room, and Jason touches the pipes there, finding them warm under his gloves.

“Gotcha,” he mutters smugly, and follows the pipe to the other end of the room. 

It curves down into an alcove, where a control panel sits inconspicuously in the dark. Jason pulls on a couple of levers there, until there’s a hiss of steam from the other side of the room, followed by loud, scraping sounds.

A section of the wall in the corner where the pipes are had pushed open and slid away, revealing a brightly-lit hallway, and Jason turns off his night vision before quickly making his way through the opening.

It’s narrow, but not too much that he can’t walk without hunching over. It’s not much of a distance either, turning a corner not even ten feet ahead, and Jason slows down when he hears two distinct voices arguing. They don’t sound like anyone Jason knows, and a quick, spectral scan with his helmet reveals two goons guarding what looks like a lead-lined door.

Jason takes them out in less than three moves, piling them against one wall. He doesn’t kill them, because Bruce will give him hell for it later and Jason swears he’s trying, but he _ does _ break an ankle on each of them, if only to slow them down when they finally come to.

(He’s _ trying_.)

The hallway opens up to a metal-grated walkway that overlooks what seems to be a storage area, where three more goons stand - armed with AKs - guarding a steel door. Jason’s contemplating shooting them as the most effective way of getting past them when he actually catches onto what they’re saying.

“It’s been an hour, when’s the boss gonna let us have a go at ‘em?” one of them - bald and scarred on the left of his ugly mug - complains.

The one to his right - flabby chin, lazy eye - grunts in agreement. “I’d like five minutes alone with Nightwing. Teach the pretty boy not to mess with us again.”

“I’d rather have the Bat,” the third goon says, before adding, “But boss says he’s savin’ ‘em for something special. So shut your traps and don’t let your guard down.”

“Who’s coming, anyway?” Baldy says. “Robin? We can break his neck, easy.”

“He broke Johnny’s legs two weeks ago,” Third snaps, sounding irritated and uneasy. “Kid’s dangerous.”

“We’ll just drug ‘em like we did Batman and Nightwing,” Flabby reasons.

“I ain’t no pervert,” Third says, this time jerking the butt of his AK into Flabby’s side. “You know what the new toxin does to ‘em.”

“We wouldn’t hafta touch the kid,” Flabby protests, rubbing at the spot the AK had hit. “‘Sides, he’s just a baby, ain’t he? Wouldn’t work that way on him.”

“Yeah, but you saw how strong that shit is,” Baldy points out. “Had Batman leaking like a drain in seconds. Jeez, can we at least crack the door open a little? I wanna get another whiff of that smell…”

And Jason’s heard enough.

He shoots them dead from his perch, not caring about Bruce’s disapproval this time, and blows the door down in a rage. If what those assholes had said was true, then-

The room is dimly-lit with a singular ceiling light, and it’s dark enough that Jason is barely able to make out the sight of a naked figure hunched over a table in the centre. But Jason doesn’t need his eyes to know what’s going on in there.

The sharp, familiar scent of mint and caramel is ten times stronger than Jason is used to even through his mask, and tempered by an ashy, earthen undertone that Jason’s instincts recognize instantly as family. 

Jason knows, before his eyes have even adjusted, that it’s Dick there in that room, naked as the day he was born, and making muffled, desperate sounds of need.

As Jason steps closer, he realizes a little dazedly that Dick’s not alone.

He’s hunched over, strapped down with leather belts around his hips and his thighs, which are spread over someone else’s waist. They’re positioned in such a way that from where Jason’s standing, Dick’s dripping cunt is pressed down against the other captive’s, and their entrances are lined up almost perfectly were it not for the fact that whoever’s under Dick keeps undulating their hips eagerly.

Their clits rub against each other with every move either of them makes, and Dick whimpers and groans each time, his hips jerking haltingly, movement limited by the belts that are keeping him in place. 

They’re both leaking profusely, as only heats would allow them to, and Jason- Jason wishes he’d killed the fuckers outside a little slower. Even in his fury, even with his level of self-control, Jason feels himself stirring in his pants from the sight, the scents, the seductive sounds that Dick’s unwittingly making. 

Suddenly, the room feels much smaller than it actually is, and Jason has to shake his head, has to hold his breath a little to not let himself forget the reason that he’s here in the first place.

He rushes over to the table, and it’s just a little shocking to find that the person underneath Dick is _ Bruce_.

Dick still has his mask on his face, but Bruce’s cowl is gone, along with the rest of the Batsuit. But he’s got a wide length of cloth tied over his eyes and mouth, and while they hide his face, it doesn’t change the fact that whoever had done this has seen him under all that; knows now what he looks like.

“Jay,” Dick gasps suddenly, arching his back and turning his head in Jason’s direction. 

He jerks in his restraints, eliciting a muffled groan from Bruce when the action rubs them against each other again - and Jason notices faintly that their cocks have been tied together too, bobbing haplessly between their hard bellies - and Dick winces in apology.

“Get- get me out of these,” he pleads. He nods towards his hands, which are strapped against the table on either side of Bruce’s head. Bruce’s own hands are strapped down alongside Dick’s.

Jason obeys without a word, almost afraid that if he opens his mouth, something stupid will tumble past his lips. 

Something like, _ you smell good, Dickie_, or, _ I’ll kill every bastard that’s seen you two like this_, or, _ the last time this happened you wouldn’t look at me for a week_.

He cuts through the leather with his knife, but even when Dick’s freed, he doesn’t get off of Bruce immediately. Jason’s still cutting through the belts tying Bruce down to the table by his waist and his hips when Dick grinds down against the older man, whimpering and nosing against Bruce’s scent gland.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he chants, even as he reaches down to grip their cocks in one hand, his other hand rising to pull Bruce’s gag and blindfold loose. “I can’t- I need-”

Jason’s distracted for a moment when Bruce lets out a loud, breathless sigh of relief as Dick’s touch envelopes them both, and then Bruce’s voice rasping, “It’s- it’s alright, don’t- don’t stop…”

“Fuck,” Jason mutters to himself, finishing with the last of the straps that’s keeping Bruce down.

When he looks over at them, they’re kissing fervently, Dick grinding down against Bruce and Bruce grinding back in a twisted, feverish dance that has them both panting and groaning into each other’s mouths. 

Bruce’s freed hands are running down Dick’s back, dragging them harshly against Dick’s skin until they reach the small of his waist, and he dips a finger between Dick’s generous cheeks and pushes in.

Dick breaks the kiss to gasp for air, groaning a mindless string of, “Yes, yes, yes, more, please, _ god_,” and thrusting his hips back to pull Bruce’s finger in deeper into himself. 

Bruce obliges, pulling it back out before driving the digit back in harshly and repeating the action again and again, until Dick’s cunt is gushing with slick. There’s so much that they spill down onto Bruce’s own entrance, and Jason watches, utterly mesmerized, as Bruce twitches visibly with need.

It’s a miracle Jason’s held himself back this long, but he makes the mistake of glancing away from the tempting picture of Bruce finger-fucking Dick to look up at Bruce’s face.

He’s unnerved to find that Bruce is looking at _ him_, not at Dick, and his eyes are hooded, his cheeks flushed from heat and arousal, and it’s the most open expression Jason’s seen on him in literal years.

“Come here,” Bruce says, low and gravelly, and the sound of his voice travels straight down to Jason’s half-hard cock.

Jason moves, feeling like he’s in a dream as he obeys - it has to be, because since when does Jason listen to Bruce without arguing at least a _ little _ \- and Bruce reaches up to cup at Jason’s cheek with the hand that’s not fucking into Dick hard and fast. 

Jason feels the warm air of the room brush against his face as the faceplates of his helmet fold back, and Bruce curls his hand around the back of Jason’s neck and pulls him down into a possessive kiss.

He tastes like smoke and winter, bitter and crisp and _ perfect _ on Jason’s tongue, and Jason lets himself enjoy it, lets Bruce delve into his mouth and spread more of his taste inside him. Bruce is as forceful with the kiss as he is out in the field, and when he pulls away from him, Jason nearly whimpers at the loss.

“Fuck me,” Bruce mouths against the corner of Jason’s lips, and Jason’s eyes widen for a moment before he’s scrambling to obey yet another order.

He’s got his cock out of his pants in seconds, standing at the foot of the table and between Bruce’s spread legs. Bruce pulls his finger out of Dick’s ass with a loud, obscene ‘plop’, which draws a moan of protest from the man, but Bruce hushes him, pulling him down for a short, bruising kiss.

Bruce grabs Dick by his hips and lifts the younger man up by a few inches, and Dick seems to know exactly what Bruce is thinking, because he reaches down to wrap his hands around Bruce’s cock, tugging at it a couple of times before he rubs it between the folds of his dripping entrance, coating Bruce with his own slick. 

Bruce groans at the contact, throwing his head back and forcing his hips to keep still as Dick lines them up and slowly sinks down onto him. Jason wishes he could see the look on Dick’s face, but Dick’s back is to him. 

Instead, Jason waits until Dick is fully seated on Bruce, and as Dick pauses to catch his breath, Jason pushes him down until he’s lying chest to chest with the older man, giving Jason the perfect view of Bruce’s throbbing cock nestled balls-deep inside Dick’s cunt.

“_Jay_,” Dick whines, craning his neck to look at Jason under his long lashes. “Please.” 

He wiggles his hips, pulling Bruce out of him a little, stretching his entrance around the hard appendage, and Bruce tightens his grip on Dick’s hips to still him.

“Jason,” Bruce grunts above Dick’s head, and Jason’s breath stutters in his throat as he is subjected to the disapproving glares of two omegas in heat.

A part of him is screaming at him to stop this, screaming that it’s not too late for him to back out right the fuck now and get them the hell out of this shit hole. 

Jason might have been fantasizing about this exact situation since he’d first started going through puberty and learnt that there was more use for his cock than to simply piss with, but Bruce and Dick are clearly not in their right minds to consent.

But Jason is also sure that he’s never going to have an opportunity like this come his way ever again.

Bruce already hates him anyway, and Dick’s always too busy with Blüdhaven to care much for Jason’s company.

What’s Jason got to lose, right?

“Jason?”

It’s Dick this time, and his voice sounds softer, less needy and more concerned. It snaps Jason out of his turmoil, and his eyes refocus to see that Dick’s brows are furrowed on his temple, his lips turned down at the corners in a frown. 

There’s a shift in the air too, the scent of distress amidst the heat and arousal, and Jason flags as he breathes it in deep.

“Shit,” he mutters to himself, tucking his cock back into his pants. “_God damn it_.”

“Jason,” Dick whimpers. “What’re you doing?”

Jason moves around the room, pressing his hands against the walls, looking for a catch or a secret switch, trying to focus on what’s wrong in this situation and not what’s so fucking hot about it. He vaguely hears Bruce and Dick moving - the vulgar squelching sound of Bruce pulling out of Dick burning Jason’s ears - and steadfastly ignores them.

He remembers belatedly that his face is still exposed and quickly remedies that. It’s a lot easier to ignore how arousing the room smells with his mask back on properly, but he can’t _ not _ hear the two of them kissing, hear the sounds of damp skin brushing against damp skin and Dick needily whispering for Bruce to _ put it in me again please, just a little_, and Bruce telling him _ it’s alright Dick, everything’s going to be alright._

Jason finds a hollow section of a wall instead of a switch like he’d expected, and impatiently blows it out, finding five goons on the other side. They’re stunned form the small explosion, and he _ takes care of them _ in record time, taking perhaps a little too much satisfaction from their blood on his hands, on his face, on the walls where the gunshots have splattered in gruesome arcs.

The coppery scent of it in Jason’s nose is a stark relief to the cloying temptation that is Bruce and Dick’s combined heats, and Jason feels a little less unbalanced as he locates Batman and Nightwing’s suits and gear.

He grabs everything he sees and goes back to the dark room, where Bruce is still trying to calm Dick down, whose scent has spiked significantly with more distress than before. Jason frowns at that, dumping everything he’s carrying on the table where the two of them had been tied down to.

“Is he hurt?” Jason asks Bruce. At least he looks more like himself now, while Dick seems to be losing it completely.

“It’s the toxin,” Bruce supplies, and nope, he’s definitely still affected because he offers Jason a _ tentative smile_.

Weird doesn’t even begin to cover it, and Jason feels simultaneously embarrassed and freaked out at the sight of it. He throws Batman’s suit at Bruce in an effort to stop the feelings, and Bruce lets go of Dick to catch it.

“I’ll help him get dressed,” Jason grunts out, gathering Dick in his arms and guiding him over to the table.

Dick whimpers in his ear as he moves, practically melting against Jason’s side, and Jason maybe chokes a bit as he’s drowned in Dick’s scent and feels the slick from between Dick’s thighs seeping through his pants.

“Jay, want you to fuck me,” Dick groans, hands draping over Jason’s shoulders. “_Please_. Don’t go, don’t- I need you, please- I can’t-”

Jason hushes him, reaching up to grasp Dick’s forearms and peeling him off, pushing the older man against the table. “We need to get you dressed and back to the cave, Dickie,” Jason forces out between gritted teeth. “You’ll thank me for it later.”

Dick groans out a negative, shaking his head, but his struggles are weak and Jason’s glad he can’t see Dick’s eyes behind his domino mask because he’s not sure he’d be able to resist him if Dick actually _ looks _ at him. 

Somehow, he manages to get Dick back into the Nightwing suit, although most of the armour plates remain unbuckled and Jason’s got to stuff whatever won’t stay on into his pockets. Dick’s still trying to hump him even so, and Jason loses all patience and throws him over his shoulder instead. 

Dick protests, wriggling in his hold, but Bruce is ready, thank fuck, so Jason leads them quickly back the way he’d come in.

(He shoots the other two goons he’d knocked out in the head each, Bruce too out of it to really notice or protest, which is fine; it’s _ effective _ and _ justified _ because they must’ve been included in the list of people that have seen Bruce’s face, hadn’t they?

Jason couldn’t let them live with that knowledge. He might hate Bruce, but he isn’t going to let some random low-lifes bring the Bat down. No, that privilege is _ Jason’s _ and Jason’s alone.

Still, he knows Bruce will hate him more for it later, but Jason _ doesn’t give a flying fuck _ at the moment.)

Jason hits the distress button on Dick’s suit as they exit the building, and silently swears to pay Barbara back in gold and diamonds when the Batmobile comes roaring down the street in less than a minute. 

He stuffs Dick into the back, and waits impatiently for Bruce to get in, feeling agitated from being out in the open, from being unsatisfied and still half-hard; the unfortunate effect of having Dick so close to him even for the short amount of time it had taken to get out of that damned room.

Bruce hesitates as he bends to take a seat, and Jason’s about to snap at him to hurry the fuck up when Bruce suddenly grabs him and buries his nose into the crook of Jason’s neck. Jason’s too shocked to react, unwittingly allowing Bruce to scent him as he stands frozen in the older man’s hold.

“Proud of you,” Bruce murmurs against his throat as he pulls away, sending a shiver running down Jason’s spine.

And then Bruce finally sits the fuck down and Jason is left standing in the cold street alone, confused and turned on again.

\---

Alfred, bless the old man, takes the state of Dick and Bruce in stride, like as if this sort of thing happens on a daily basis. Jason knows for a fact that it doesn’t, and sticks around for a while - but only because Barbara wants to makes sure that whatever toxin the two of them had been dosed with hadn’t gotten into Jason’s system too, of course.

(No, he hadn’t stayed because he was worried, fuck off whoever says otherwise.)

Jason lets her run tests on him, while Dick and Bruce are quarantined in isolation chambers that Jason doesn’t remember ever being in the cave before. Alfred takes care of them, washing them down and changing them into pajamas. Dick tries to hump him too, but Alfred doesn’t even blink against his advances; an enviable rock of stability that Jason marvels at.

Bruce, on the other hand, had calmed down considerably in comparison. His movements had become slow and sluggish, but his eyes were clearer than they had been down in that basement, and Jason avoids them simply because he can’t get Bruce’s words out of his head.

_ Proud of you_.

Tch. So fucking what? Jason doesn’t need Bruce’s approval, doesn’t fucking _ want _ it, thank you fucking much. Bruce’s unexpected declaration hadn’t meant anything. It was just something else that had been said under the influence of the toxin, nothing else.

(So what if Jason’s heart thumps faster when he thinks back on those words? So what if his chest clenches painfully when he remembers that _ look _ in Bruce’s eyes?

So what if Jason still wishes they were in that room again, just the three of them, with no threat of imminent danger so that they had all the time in the world to explore each other’s bodies and learn more about one another than they ever had in the years that they’d lived under the same roof?

None of it means _ anything_.)

“I’ve managed to isolate the compounds in the new toxin,” Barbara says, snapping Jason out of his tumultuous thoughts. “I think there’s some of Ivy’s influence in it. It’s definitely Scarecrow’s, but the neurochemistry’s been altered to trigger very different responses in the brain.”

“Like induced heats?” Jason says wryly, crossing his arms over his chest.

Barbara hums absently in response, still typing away at the Batcomputer. It’s a rare sight to see her in the Batcave when she’s got her own cave in the clock tower now, but Jason figures Dick and Bruce’s disappearance had freaked her out enough for her to come down here herself.

The last time one of them had lost communications, Bruce had nearly been unmasked on live television, so Jason figures her reaction is justified.

“Instead of hallucinating their worst fears, the recipient hallucinates their greatest desires,” Barbara adds, shooting him a furtive glance. “You’ll need to go back there and see if you missed anything. We have to find out who’s behind it and why. We can’t risk something this potent being used as a weapon, especially not until I can find a cure to reverse its effects.”

“You’re forgetting that I don’t work for Batman,” Jason interrupts her. “Whatever this is, you’re own your own. I got Dick and Bruce back, I did my part. I’m leaving now.” 

He strides towards the stairs as he finishes speaking, to illustrate his point, but Barbara stops him with her next words.

“The toxin induces heats, but it also acts as a muscle relaxant and renders the recipient physically vulnerable. This is essentially a date-rape drug, Jason. Where do date-rape drugs always spread first?”

The answer is so obvious, Jason doesn’t even have to think about it. Bad neighbourhoods, of course. _ Jason’s _ neighbourhoods. Places he’s laid claim to, places under his protection since he’d wrestled control of them almost two years ago now. Places he’s been methodically cleaning up in ways Batman doesn’t like hearing about.

If this new toxin hits the streets-

(Jason thinks of Dick mindlessly begging to be fucked and unable to fight out of Jason’s hold, thinks of Bruce smiling and breaking down his own walls and saying things he’d never say in a million years, not in any other situation other than the one they’d just stepped out from and-)

Barbara knows exactly which of Jason’s buttons to push, and Jason hates that he _ lets _ her.

“If I kill anyone, you don’t get to give me grief about it,” he snaps, turning back around to glare at her.

Barbara frowns, glancing over at the isolation chambers on the other side of the room. “Can you at least _ try _ not to?” she bargains.

Jason rolls his eyes and snaps his faceplate back on pointedly. “Not gonna stop you from dreaming.”

He leaves just as he hears her heave a resigned sigh, muttering, “I did not sign up to babysit idiots, Bruce.”

\---

Five hours later, Jason’s collapsing onto his old bed in his old room that Alfred had kept ready for use despite Jason having been gone for almost six years now.

He’d rather have gone back to his own apartment but the night had been a huge pain in his fucking-

It’d been Scarecrow after all, working together with Harley of all people, and Jason had tracked them down to the sewers where they’d attempted to shoot him, bludgeon him, drown him and drug him, all of which Jason had somehow managed to live through.

Only to get run down by some random fucking thugs outside the GCPD after he’d dropped off Scarecrow and Harley on the rooftop.

Jason had survived the crash obviously, except he’d already had three cracked ribs and a huge cut on his side. The crash had given him more cuts and bruises, but what had really gotten to him were the thugs’ taunting.

They’d called him Batman’s _ sidekick_, like as if he’d ever even helped Batman in public before - fine, there was that _ one _ time - and hadn’t given Gotham’s criminal underworld enough reason to fear him in his own right after he’d conquered Gotham with a whole goddamn army under his command.

(Which hadn’t worked out too well for him, admittedly, but the point _ still _ stands; he’d single-handedly taken down Black Mask’s gang too, for fuck’s sake. How fucking dare they call him a _ sidekick_.)

He’d killed the thugs on the spot, and Cash had conveniently chosen that moment to come out of the building and had tried to arrest him.

_ Fuck_, Jason had just been too fucking _ tired _ to give Barbara the slip and he _ never _ wants Bruce to know where to find him if he could help it.

He wishes he’d killed Scarecrow and Harley when he’d had the chance, but the thought of Bruce getting all pissy about it when he finds out had made Jason hold back.

(It has absolutely nothing to do with how he wants Bruce to look at him like he had earlier that night, to hear his approval just _ one more time _ before Jason goes back to being the black sheep of the family again, and if anyone says otherwise, well; Jason has plenty of bullets to waste on delusional morons.)

He’s still in his Red Hood get up, facedown on the bed, too drained to give a shit how uncomfortable it is or how his helmet is going to give him a crick in the neck when he wakes up in the morning, when there’s a tentative knock on his closed door.

He considers ignoring it and letting sleep pull him under, but Alfred’s the only one that’s ever been considerate enough to not simply barge in on him, and he feels guilty for even thinking of giving the old man the cold shoulder.

He turns his head to face the door, but doesn’t move otherwise. “S’not locked,” he calls out, reaching one hand tiredly up to pull his helmet off and dropping it onto the floor by the bed.

He’s shocked to see that it’s Bruce, not Alfred, who pushes the door open slowly. The sight of him sends Jason scrambling up to a sitting position, before he remembers that he’s not seventeen anymore, he’s not Robin anymore. He has no reason to feel like he owes Bruce any sort of formality, not after all this time, and he scowls up at the man.

Bruce looks tired but the toxin seems to have worn off completely. His expression is as guarded and impassive as it usually is when there’s no public persona to maintain, and Jason ignores the stab of hurt that pierces his gut at the fact that Bruce is still treating him like he’s a stranger.

But what else had Jason expected really?

“Oracle briefed me on what happened,” Bruce says in the Bat’s voice, which is a further twist of the knife. He doesn’t move further into the room, standing between the door and the bed. “Cash has issued an official warrant for your arrest.”

Jason sneers. “No, no, don’t rush to thank me or anything,” he says scathingly. “You had everything under control, right?”

Bruce’s expression shutters further, locking Jason out firmly, and Jason clutches at the bedsheets under him, fury sparking through every fibre of his being at the man’s audacity.

“I didn’t come up here to fight, Jason.”

“Of course not, you’re just here to tell me everything I did wrong.”

Bruce doesn’t correct him, and despite how _ tired _ Jason is, he stands up, having had enough and fully intending to leave.

“You know what, _ fuck you_, Bruce,” he snarls. “Fuck you and your goddamn code and your hypocritical high horse! I saved your fucking ass tonight. _ Literally_. And if you don’t like how I did it, then you can fucking shove your disappointment down your throat and don’t ask me for help again!”

He strides past Bruce towards the door, but Bruce stops him by his arm, and Jason hates how he knows he can overpower Bruce and leave anyway, but he _ doesn’t_. He lets Bruce stop him, _ wants _ Bruce to stop him and it’s- it’s just _ awful_, how much this man still has so much influence over his actions.

Jason hates it, he hates _ him_.

“I didn’t come up here to fight,” Bruce repeats. When Jason doesn’t say anything, he continues, in a softer tone, “You didn’t kill Scarecrow or Harley.”

Jason huffs out a humourless chuckle, jerking his arm out of Bruce’s grip. “Yeah, well, next time I’ll bring more bullets.”

“I don’t think you will.”

Jason exhales loudly at how _ sure _ he sounds about that, half annoyed and half furious at how Bruce still manages to be self-righteous about things he has no fucking control over.

“You don’t get to decide that,” Jason bites out.

He nearly jumps out of his skin when Bruce’s hand lands on his shoulder, even though he’d expected it, had heard Bruce move closer to him. 

His heart starts racing at the contact and a part of him wants more, wants it like he’d wanted it back in that basement, but a larger part hates himself for being so goddamn weak.

“You’ve never disappointed me, Jason,” he hears, or he thinks he does.

Because it doesn’t sound like Bruce at all, open and emotional and raw. He sounds _ vulnerable_, in a way that he had only when he’d been strung out on that new toxin, and Jason’s breath stutters in his throat. He thinks he must be imagining it, but Bruce’s hand turns him around, and Jason goes with it, unable to resist.

Bruce’s eyes are sharp and clear when they meet Jason’s, and Jason doesn’t think he’s ever seen Bruce look so sad in all the time that he’s known him.

“You’re such a fucking liar,” Jason croaks out, and his cheeks feel wet. When had he started crying?

Bruce doesn’t reply, pulling Jason closer instead, and then they’re kissing, soft and slow like snow melting away at the onset of summer. 

Bruce tastes like he had in that basement, but there’s no rush this time, no desperation fueling him like before, no undertone of artificial lust driving his tongue. Jason feels like he’s drowning in Bruce’s scent and taste, and he can’t help but let himself fall in it.

It’s wrong, as wrong as if Bruce were still under the toxin’s influence, but Jason can’t bring himself to care. He’s just so tired of fighting this, _ tired of everything_, and he sobs as he kisses him back, reaching up to bury his hands in the tangled strands of Bruce’s hair.

Bruce kisses like they’ve got all the time in the world, taking where Jason can’t help but give, until Jason doesn’t have anymore air and has to pull away to gasp for it. Bruce mouths at the line of his jaw instead, trailing wet kisses against Jason’s skin as he pulls Jason closer by the hips, reaching one hand up to push Jason’s jacket off his shoulder.

Jason lets go of Bruce’s hair to help him, shrugging the heavy leather off, and it’s like a switch is flipped because Bruce reaches for his zipper and pulls it down hurriedly, his movements almost frantic as he pushes aside the rest of Jason’s top and suckles on the bared skin of Jason’s collarbone. Jason gasps when Bruce gets too close to his scent gland, and Bruce hesitates over it for a split second before he attacks it fervently.

His bite is too gentle to break skin, but Jason hasn’t wanted this kind of contact since- since Bruce last scented him, _ years _ ago, before everything in his world had fallen to pieces around him, and it sends Jason spiralling into a wormhole of shocking pleasure. It feels _ good_, damnably so, and Jason moans long and hard, his cock twitching violently in his pants as Bruce bites and licks and sucks like his life is depending on it.

Jason’s thoughts scatter uselessly as he bucks his hips against Bruce’s, and his pulse jumps when he feels that Bruce is just as hard as him under the thin material of his pajamas. With a growl, Jason grabs Bruce’s waist, pushing him backward until they’re falling over onto the bed, Bruce flat on his back with Jason looming over him.

Bruce’s lips are red and shiny with spit, and Jason leans down to catch them in his, biting them and bruising them further as he grinds down on Bruce, who bucks up to meet his motions in tandem. They gyrate against each other until they’re both panting desperately for more, and Bruce reaches down into Jason’s pants, his fingers calloused and warm as they wrap firmly around Jason’s cock.

Jason lets out a groan at the feeling - “Yes, yes, god, _ touch me_,” - burying his face into the crook of Bruce’s neck and inhaling deeply, and hears Bruce moaning breathlessly above him as he tugs and pulls on him, rubbing Jason down against himself through their pants.

It feels good, it feels mind-blowingly good, but Jason wants more, _ needs _ more, and he reaches down with one hand to pull himself out of his pants, Bruce still wrapped tight around him.

Jason lets go and cups at Bruce’s groin, kneading against Bruce’s balls through the expensive cotton, and Bruce’s hips buck up involuntarily, and he stutters out, “Ja- Jason,” in a sweet, velvety tone that has Jason twitching in Bruce’s grasp.

Jason kisses Bruce’s shoulder, continues to fondle him before he tugs at the waistband of Bruce’s pajamas and pulls them down until Bruce’s cock springs free of its confines.

It’s beautiful, of course, just like the rest of Bruce, thick and long and already leaking profusely at the head. Jason pulls back from Bruce, leaning back on folded legs and pries Bruce’s fingers off of him. Bruce opens his mouth to protest, an almost panicked look in his eyes, mingled with confusion at what he might’ve done to push Jason away.

But Jason shushes him with a quiet purr, running his hands up and down Bruce’s sides soothingly until Bruce calms down, and then he scoots further down Bruce’s legs and leans down until he’s face to face with Bruce’s cock and balls. 

Jason gives the base of the cock an experimental lick that has Bruce choking on a moan, and taking it as an encouragement, Jason wraps both hands around it and pulls it up to suck it into his mouth.

“Ha- ah, Jason, Jaso- mngh-”

Jason swallows down as much of him as he can, running his tongue over the slit and under the bulbous head, hollowing out his cheeks for as much friction as possible. He’s done this only a handful of times, long, long ago, and almost always not because he’d wanted to. 

He’d never been particularly good at it, as far as he knows, but from the sounds Bruce is making, and the stuttering jerks of his hips, Jason figures he must have improved at some point.

Bruce tastes different down here than he does in his mouth, and Jason revels in it, searing the memory into his mind so that he’ll never forget it. After several bobs, Bruce grabs Jason’s hair and holds him still, and when Jason peeks up at him, his eyes are scrunched closed, his brows furrowed as he pants, open-mouthed.

“I’m- I’m close,” he stammers, and Jason feels his face heat up at the confession, at the acknowledgment that it’s Jason that’s reducing Bruce to this state of mush.

He pulls off of Bruce’s cock, but not before giving it one last, teasing lick, to which Bruce peels his eyes open to glare down at Jason half-heartedly for. Jason grins back at him, feeling how dopey it must look, but hardly able to bring himself to care.

Bruce pulls him back up to kiss him, and Jason feels hotter at the thought that Bruce can taste himself on Jason’s tongue, that Bruce will know what Jason tastes like, mixed in with himself, and the thought really shouldn’t turn him on as much as it does.

“You like this,” Bruce murmurs against his lips when they part, and Jason flushes hotter at the low, rumbling tone. “You like how much I want you, how easily you make me lose control. How wet you make me with just your mouth.”

Jason can’t deny the truth in his words, and Bruce grabs Jason’s hand, pushing it against his own groin, under his balls and the hardness of his cock. The cotton there is soaked through with slick, thick and warm in Jason’s palm and pooling under Bruce’s hips on the bed. The discovery has Jason choking again with desire, and Bruce’s fingers in Jason’s hair tighten possessively.

“No one else makes me lose it like you do, Jason,” Bruce says, and it’s quieter, softer, like an intimate secret rather than the empty pillow talk it should be, and it makes Jason want to fuck him into the bed until Bruce can’t walk straight for a week.

“Do it,” Bruce says, and Jason realizes that he’d said that last part out loud.

Before he can feel embarrassed about it, Bruce lets go of Jason and reaches down to push his pants further down his hips, to his thighs, until they’re past his knees and he’s kicking them the rest of the way off. He spreads his legs open and wraps them around Jason’s waist, pulling Jason down until Jason’s cock is resting directly against the wetness of his cunt.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Jason gasps, burying his face into Bruce’s chest, straining to keep himself from thrusting right into that inviting heat. _ I never wanted to hurt you_, is what he can’t finish saying, because a part of him knows it’s _ not true _ despite the other part of him _ wishing desperately _that it were.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying again until he feels Bruce’s thumbs wiping at the tears under his eyes, and Bruce coos at him, his strong thighs squeezing around Jason’s waist. 

“You can’t hurt me, Jason,” Bruce says, as soft and sweet as his touch.

Jason sobs helplessly at the reassurance, and then Bruce is cupping at his face, pulling him up and kissing him tenderly at the same time he pulls Jason closer with the balls of his feet against Jason’s back. It makes Jason’s cock nudge between the folds of Bruce’s entrance, and Jason gasps into Bruce’s mouth as he slowly breaches the older man.

Bruce doesn’t let him pull away until Jason’s firmly sheathed inside him, and Jason’s panting both from the lack of air and the effort of not letting himself mindlessly thrust away inside Bruce’s tight, wonderful heat. It feels so good Jason’s surprised he hadn’t come immediately, and Bruce smiles up at him, pleased and challenging.

“Are you waiting for an order?”

It almost sounds like he’s chastising him, which is ridiculous because it’s very clear that he’s not doing anything of the sort, not when he’s squeezing around Jason so tightly. But Jason feels a twinge of familiar annoyance at being bossed around, and he grabs Bruce’s arms and pins them down on either side of his head, gripping his wrists so hard they’ll probably bruise in the morning.

Bruce’s eyes glint up at him, and his smile takes on a devious tone that has Jason pulling out of him and thrusting back in almost violently, and Bruce lets out a sharp exhale, his eyes widening slightly as the smile falls away.

Jason does it again, and again, relishing the drag of Bruce’s insides accommodating his cock, the wet heat that’s strangling pleasure right out of him, like it’s trying to take him in and never let him go. 

Jason fucks him like he’s trying to brand a Jason-shaped mark inside of Bruce, to leave a part of himself inside him so deep that Bruce will never forget what Jason feels like, will never want to feel anything besides the pleasure that Jason’s pounding into him.

After several thrusts, Bruce arches off of the bed, moans spilling from his lips carelessly as his cock bounces between their bellies and leaves trails of precum all over their skin. Jason lets go of one of Bruce’s wrist to touch him, and Bruce cries out as Jason starts jerking him off to the same rhythm of his brutal thrusts.

Bruce comes first, in bursts of white ribbons that paint his shirt obscenely, clenching and spasming around Jason, and Jason’s hips stutter to a stop, not expecting to feel it with such intensity. He loses it not long after, coming inside Bruce in mid-thrust, and he has half the mind to pull out before his knot can start hardening.

Bruce is shuddering under him, his cock still leaking even though he’s spilled so much that most of his shirt is covered in his own come by now, and Jason manages to pull Bruce’s legs from around him before he collapses onto the bed, panting and gasping for breath. 

He misses being inside Bruce almost as soon as he’d pulled out, but his knot is heavy and foreboding between his legs, reminding him exactly why that wouldn’t have been a good idea.

“Why?” Bruce breathes out after while, turning his head to look at Jason.

Jason’s about to fall asleep by then, a lot more tired now than he had been when Bruce had entered the room, and he barely manages to ask, confused, “Why what?”

“Why did you pull out?”

Jason frowns at the question, even more confused now that Bruce had even had to ask. “I- Did you _ want _ me to knot you?”

It’s Bruce’s turn to look confused, and then his eyes flick down to Jason’s nether regions, and his eyes widen, just for a split second, before he looks back up at Jason.

“I didn’t-” he starts, but stops himself and shakes his head, closing his eyes.

Jason’s confusion knows no bounds, especially when Bruce unbuttons his shirt, discards it over the side of the bed, and turns over until he’s facing Jason, and he scoots closer until he has an arm thrown over Jason’s waist. He presses his forehead against Jason’s and looks the younger man in the eyes.

“I’d forgotten you were an alpha,” Bruce admits quietly, and Jason recoils on instinct, a wave of shock, guilt and self-loathing surfacing through the ocean of fatigue that had been pulling him under.

But Bruce’s arm is firm around him, holding him in place, and Bruce coos at him, pecking a chaste kiss on Jason’s nose. “Being an alpha isn’t a bad thing, Jason, it’s- believe me, it’s not,” Bruce says, gentle and reassuring.

Jason doesn’t believe that, but he’s too tired to argue. He feels uneasy now. If he’d known Bruce hadn’t remembered- if he’d even thought to warn him first before- 

Bruce would probably never have wanted this if-

“Stop,” Bruce says, halting Jason’s spiraling thoughts. “Don’t, Jason. I just didn’t remember. It wouldn’t have changed a thing.”

He kisses him again, this time on the lips, and Jason lets himself believe the lie and kisses him back.

“Now sleep. We’ll talk more in the morning.”

\---

Bruce is still in bed with him when Jason opens his eyes, squinting up at the sunlight that’s filtering in through the window.

Jason’s on his back, and Bruce is curved into his side, still snoring lightly and deep asleep. Jason’s not sure what he should do about it.

He’d expected Bruce to be gone before the sun would even rise, had expected to be abandoned again, as usual. He’s under no delusions that Bruce hadn’t still been affected by the toxin when he’d entered the room last night, and he’d thought the older man would realize his mistake before Jason would have a chance to form a coherent thought.

After a long while, Jason extricates himself from Bruce’s arms carefully, and cleans himself up in the connecting bathroom. 

He finds a set of his old clothes in the drawers in the room - clean and fresh, like Alfred had expected Jason to come back any day now - and he changes into a red sweater and a pair of jeans. The sweater fits snugly and the jeans are a little tight, but they’re better than walking around in his come-crusted uniform.

He balls up his Red Hood clothes under his arm and leaves quickly, making a beeline for the foyer and the front door.

He’s immensely glad to be close to freedom, but just as he wraps a hand around the door handle, Dick’s voice behind him pins him to the spot.

“Alfred made waffles.”

He sounds cautious, almost _ coy_, and Jason feels the skin between his shoulder blades tighten with apprehension.

“His waffles are awful,” Jason manages to bite out, and he hadn’t realized how dry his throat is until he hears his own raspy voice out loud.

“I like his waffles,” Dick replies. “There’s eggs too.”

Jason senses Dick moving closer, tightens his grip on the handle and wills himself to push it down, to pull the door open and get the fuck out of there before it’s too late. He’s still fighting with himself internally when he feels one of Dick’s hands cupping at his elbow and the other resting on the back of Jason’s hand, gently prying him off of the door handle.

“Come have breakfast,” Dick says quietly, and Jason makes the mistake of looking into his eyes. “Please?”

The thing about Dick is that he _ knows _ he’s pretty. He flaunts it, he _ uses _ it, wielding it as easily as he does his escrima sticks - Dick’s beauty is a warning to everyone that stands in his way, and Bruce had always disapproved of this. 

Jason had heard them arguing about it more times than he can count, back when Dick had still been sore about being replaced, when Jason had still been trying to fill in shoes that were too big for a street kid like him.

Dick had used their long-running disagreement as one of the numerous reasons why his visits home were far and few in between, and Jason hadn’t quite understood why Dick using his body as another tool to take down criminals was a bad thing until _ Jason _ had started noticing it, too.

He hadn’t quite understood until the sway of Dick’s hips had left him hot and sweaty, until the subtle tilt of his head baring his scent gland had made Jason’s breath catch in his throat, until the darkened, hooded slivers of bright blue peeking between long, dark lashes had made Jason forget that this is _ Dick _he’s looking at, one of his mentors and his - grudging - role models.

Jason hadn’t understood why this all had upset Bruce until it had started upsetting _ him_, too.

But Jason isn’t Bruce. He’d always _ known _ why Dick does it, he’d _ understood_, and he would never ask Dick to stop doing whatever he can to feel like he’s in control.

It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t resent it whenever Dick uses it against him, though.

“I see Master Richard has managed to convince you to stay for breakfast,” Alfred says by way of greeting as Dick pushes Jason onto one of the stools at the island counter.

Jason grunts out a noncommittal sound in response, glaring down at the marble top.

He shouldn’t be here. He wants to get out of here, and get as far away from Wayne Manor as he can without actually leaving Gotham. It’s not doing anything good, being this close to Dick, to Alfred, to fucking Bruce upstairs, sleeping off their night of-

Of what? Jason scoffs to think of it as anything other than _ fucking_, but it hurts a little too, when it’s the closest thing to it, even though deep down, he wants it to mean _ more_.

Dick pushes a plate of pancakes in front of him, flooded with more cream and maple syrup than is possibly healthy, and grabs Jason’s hand to shove a fork into it.

“Eat,” Dick says, nudging Jason’s shoulder with his own as he settles into the stool next to him.

“You said eggs,” Jason mutters, stabbing the fork into the centre of the diabetic mess presented to him.

Alfred helpfully places a plate of the promised eggs next to the pancakes, placing another one with his god-awful waffles in front of Dick at the same time. 

“Master Timothy will be arriving in three hours, as you requested,” he tells Dick.

“Thanks, Alf,” Dick says, while Jason stiffens at the mention of the Replacement.

“I’m leaving,” he snarls, twisting off of the stool, but Dick stops him again, actually has the gall to grab his arm with a disapproving, “_Jason_.”

Jason refuses to let this play out, not twice in the span of a few measly hours. He jerks out of Dick’s hold and strides back into the foyer, over to where Dick had gotten him to abandon his dirty clothes by the door. Dick’s hot on his heels, but Jason’s fast enough to dig his gun out from there, and clicks the safety off as he whirls around and aims it at Dick’s chest.

Dick stops short, a few feet away, glaring at the weapon.

“Don’t think I won’t do it,” Jason hisses at him.

Dick doesn’t reply immediately, eyes still boring into the barrel of the gun like as if he can make it go away through sheer force of will.

They stand like that for a whole minute, the air tensed around them with too many unspoken words, and then Dick takes a step forward, finally looking up to meet Jason’s agitated gaze. Dick’s glare softens into something else, tempered by a deep tiredness that far surpasses his age.

“You can leave before Tim gets here,” he says carefully. “But not before we talk.”

“There’s nothing to _ talk _ about.”

“So you _ didn’t _ just spend the rest of last night fucking Bruce Wayne in his dead son’s old bedroom?”

It sounds worse coming out of Dick’s mouth, hearing him say it out loud - crass and dirty and _ cheap _ \- and Jason flinches involuntarily, hand tightening around his gun. 

He lets out a derisive laugh to make up for it.

“Why, you jealous, Dickie?” he taunts. “Did you want daddy’s cock in your ass too? Or maybe it was your _ dead little brother’s _ cock you wanted to choke on, huh? Tell me, Dick. When you were high off you fucking tits? Was it Bruce you were hallucinating about, or _ me_?”

Dick’s eyes widen at his words, a blush colouring his cheeks, and Jason feels better for it, feels smug that he’s got the perfect, unflappable Boy Wonder flustered and ashamed. But he doesn’t expect Dick to smile afterwards.

“Both of you?” Dick says with a shrug. “I mean, is that really a surprise? I’ve always had the worst taste in lovers.”

There’s self-deprecation in that tone of his, a familiar sound that Jason had thought he’d have grown out of since he’d stopped being a teenager, and it disturbs Jason enough that his aim falters.

_ Stupid_, he thinks to himself as Dick uses that fraction of hesitation to cross the distance between them in the blink of an eye. 

Dick twists Jason’s arm behind his back and pulls the gun out of his slackened grip, and Jason spits and curses as Dick forces him to his knees and empties the barrel of the gun onto the floor by his feet.

“You could really hurt someone with this, Jay,” Dick chides, tossing the now-useless weapon to the side. “Calm down, I just want to have a civil, adult conversation with you.”

“You call this _ civil_?” Jason snaps, craning his neck to glare furiously up at the older man.

“In my defense, you had a gun pointed at my sternum.” Dick lets Jason go, backing away from him quickly before Jason can recover and retaliate. “Jay, please. I don’t want to fight.”

“You sound just like him,” Jason hisses, rubbing at his aching shoulder as he gets back to his feet. “Do you know how fucking _ sickening _ that is? How identical you two are, and you don’t even realize it?”

“I’m no more like him than you.” Dick’s frowning at him now, clearly upset. “Hell-bent on vengeance? Thinking you can dole out justice better than the authorities? Refusing to accept help even when it’s continuously offered up to you on a silver platter? Ringing any bells for you?”

“_Fuck you_.”

“That’s what I’m _ trying _ to do, but you’ve got your knot so far up your ass that you can’t even see!”

Dick lets out an exasperated sigh, rubbing his hands over his face and through his hair and looking for all the world like as if Jason’s the one that’s giving him grief when the latter simply wants to get the fuck out of there.

“The new toxin,” Dick starts, and then pauses, his lips pursing like he’s just tasted something bad in his mouth.

He closes his eyes for a brief moment, and when he opens them again, they’re ablaze with an intensity that’s not entirely unlike the anger that’s always thrumming under Jason’s skin.

When he speaks, his voice sounds flat and hollow. “The toxin doesn’t just induce heats by making you see your deepest, darkest desires. At the end of it, when you’re too weak to refuse, when you don’t have any strength left to hold back- it takes it _ all _ away.”

Dick averts his gaze, glaring down at the floor. “You watch the person you love most in the world die in the worst way possible and there’s not a single thing you can do about it. I watched you die again. I watched _ Bruce _ die last night. And I couldn’t save either one of you.”

He looks back up at Jason, who stares at him, unsure of how to respond. 

Dick’s eyes are dark and empty, his voice cracking as he confesses, “I can’t- Jason, I’m not strong enough to go through that again. If Alfred hadn’t locked me up in that isolation chamber, I would’ve razed Gotham to the ground in your names. So_ please_. Stay and let me make sure you’re alright.”

“Dick.”

They both jump at the sound of Bruce’s voice, looking up at the staircase to see him halfway down it. He’s got a thick, black robe thrown over his shoulders, shirtless under that, and with the telltale stains on his pants and his hair mussed up in ridiculous directions, there’s only one logical conclusion exactly what he’d been up to the night before.

Jason tenses up where he stands, one hand still clutching at his shoulder, and forces a blank look on his face, even though his heart is starting to race as he catches a whiff of Bruce’s scent. Sharp and overpowering still, but muddled too, Jason’s heady narcissus layered thickly over it and permeating the air.

“Barbara successfully engineered a cure for the toxin from the sample Jason brought back,” Bruce says as he reaches the landing. “I want you to get a shot before we talk to Gordon and Cash tonight.”

“Alfred already gave me one,” Dick says, glancing over at Jason before looking back at Bruce, hesitant. “Tim’s on his way here. I- think it’s better if you took him with you instead.”

Bruce raises a singular brow, pausing where he stands. Dick immediately flounders.

“I’m perfectly fine, I just- it’s still too recent for me to look anyone else in the eye after what just happened, okay?” he says defensively, crossing his arms over his chest and looking away from Bruce’s piercing gaze. “It’s not- I was thinking I should start heading back to Blüdhaven.”

Jason watches silently as Bruce moves, and he’s not quite sure what’s actually stopping him from leaving now that the two of them are distracted by each other.

Call it masochism, call it self-flagellation, but Jason can’t tear his eyes away from the sight of Bruce gently pulling Dick into his arms and scenting him, and Dick melting against him as easily as he had done with Jason last night - even when the scene ignites intense jealousy in Jason’s gut.

He’s not even sure _ who _ he’s jealous of, or even _ why _ he should be fucking jealous in the first place, but he can’t make his feet move, and Jason really, _ really _ wants to punch himself in the face.

Or Bruce. Maybe Dick. He just needs to punch _ something_-

“I’m sorry,” he faintly hears Bruce say, a soft murmur of breath that’s barely audible. “Your heat is due tomorrow, I didn’t think it wise to stay with you when you’ve been off your birth control and weren’t in your right mind.”

“It’s not that! I just- I keep seeing it happening, Bruce. I’m physically fine, but I can’t promise- I don’t trust myself to not overreact when we’re out there. I won’t be able to stop myself if I think there’s even a chance that I might lose you, not right now.”

Jason’s eyes practically bulge out of their sockets when Bruce pulls back and tilts Dick’s head up, kissing him firmly on the mouth. Jason’s almost sure that neither of them are affected by the toxin anymore, not when Bruce had said Barbara had gotten a cure made, so what the fuck is actually happening?

(And hearing Dick say those things- since when had Dick ever been this comfortable displaying any sort of weakness in front of the man whose approval he’s craved more than air itself?

Jason had always thought that was the one thing the two of them had had in common, the one shared insecurity that had connected them on a level that set them apart from everyone else that had ever had the misfortune of knowing Batman under that cowl.

And Bruce actually _ handling _ it like someone who’s not as emotionally-stunted as a twelve-year-old instead of ordering Dick to just suck it up? Jason’s not sure which part of this whole scene is more unbelievable.)

Not for the first time, Jason feels painfully out of the loop. He’s acutely aware of how much he’s missed out, how much his supposed death had taken from him, and the anger thrumming under his skin pulses threateningly, urging him to let it burst.

This is one more thing that Dick has received from Bruce that Jason never had. One more thing that Dick can do better than Jason. One more thing that Jason wants to hate - _ does actually hate_, _ he does _\- Dick for because it means _ Jason’s never good enough_, not compared to him.

It’s with immense effort when he finally takes a deep breath and affects a sneer on his lips instead of destroying everything in sight like he desperately wants to do.

He gathers his discarded clothes, viciously kicks away the scattered bullets on the carpet, and does what he should’ve done, what he shouldn’t have let anyone stop him from doing in the first place; leave.

“Jason, wait,” he hears Dick say, and nope.

Jason’s not going to fall for that one again, not a fucking chance in hell, and he quickens his steps, manages to get to the door and grab the handle, actually able to pull it down and pull it open and-

He’s stopped again.

Someone’s standing on the doorstep, young and laughably tiny, face etched into a scowl reminiscent of Bruce’s.

“What are _ you _ doing here?” the kid demands haughtily, looking Jason up and down like he’s the dirt beneath his feet. He sniffs the air pointedly, and before Jason can snap a reply, the kid’s eyes widen and he peers behind Jason with indignation. “Father, you _ mated _ with this mongrel?”

“Who the fuck are you calling a mongrel!” Jason snarls, grabbing the kid by the back of his collar and lifting him five inches off the ground.

“Release me, oaf!” the kid shouts, struggling immediately.

Jason hadn’t expected so much strength from this tiny brat - he’s grown, damn it, why is _ everyone _ different from what Jason remembers - and is shocked into letting him go when a kick to Jason’s side reignites the pain he’d been ignoring all night and morning from his cracked ribs.

“You fucking-” he hisses out, clutching at his abdomen as the kid raises his fists, looking ready to fight and _ jesus fucking christ_, what else should Jason have expected? “I’m gonna _ kill _ you, you little shit!”

“Damian, stand down!”

“Jason!”

Jason’s vision starts spotting as his ribs protest loudly, and fuck, he really should’ve at least asked for some painkillers form Alfred. He doesn’t even have the strength left to really struggle when hands hold him by his waist.

He’s getting light-headed, his sight finally failing him as he feels himself being lifted and carried away. He manages to garble something out, a vehement protest that sounds more like gibberish even to him, but there’s not much else he can do.

It’s almost a relief when he finally loses consciousness, the last thing registering in his mind being the soft, cool touch of bedsheets under his head and Dick’s voice gently murmuring reassurances in his ear.

Fuck his life.

* * *

Talia’s eyes were dark and cold as she circled around him; appraising him, beholding her work and admiring the result of weeks and weeks of grueling training.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes, mistress.”

“What is your purpose?”

“To destroy.”

“What is your goal?”

“To kill Batman.”

“What will you do to achieve it?”

“_Anything_.”

A smirk, sly and sensual, and then her hands rested on his shoulders. “If you succeed, you will have earned a place among the League. But if you fail-”

“I _ won’t_,” he snarled, eyes narrowing. “Batman will die by my hands.”

Her smirk widened. She leaned close into his face, brushing her lips against his cheek and to the line of his jaw.

“You are no robin, my beautiful warrior,” she purred. “You are a hawk, a predator. But before I allow you to hunt…”

\---

News of the Joker’s death spread fast in the men’s barracks.

They didn’t know his history, but they knew Gotham was a poor choice of subject at the dinner table with him around.

One of his braver lieutenants risked his wrath to tell him personally. Told him the Batman had done the psychopath in.

He knew better. He hadn’t been there himself, but he’d tapped in on enough of Batman’s communications to know about the Joker virus, about the cure.

He’d heard enough to hear Batman’s regret when failed to give it to the bastard in time.

When Slade came for updates, he pulled him into bed with him, anger and adrenaline fueling his touches.

When it was over, Slade was lighting a cigar and levelling a critical stare on him with that one damned eye. “You sure you’re ready for this, kid? _ She’s _ dead too. Ra’s won’t last much longer.”

“When Crane calls, you answer,” he snapped. “You find more men in the next 12 months, you ship them here.”

Slade blew smoke in his direction. “Whatever you say, Knight,” he acquiesced.

\---

Jonathan Crane was a dead man by time he called.

After his surgery, he barely even resembled anything close to human, having succeeded in turning himself into an effigy of the fear that he craved to embed into the hearts of everyone else in the world.

“Once I have reduced Batman into a mere shell of his present glory, you may have your vengeance, Knight,” Scarecrow promised, baring his teeth in a twisted smile behind the threads over his damaged lips. “But my curiousity continues to grow. What _ is _ your business with the Bat, my friend?”

They weren’t ‘friends’, but he didn’t bother to correct Scarecrow.

“Not any of yours,” he answered in a drawl.

Twelve more hours, that was it. Twelve more hours of dealing with Scarecrow’s incessant ramblings about fear and trauma, and then he would finally face the Batman himself.

After _ years _ of waiting, of training, of letting his hate fester to prepare for this day-

Scarecrow brushed his fingers along his shoulders, circling around him in a dance that he was all too familiar with.

“Tell me, Knight,” Scarecrow cooed. “What nightmares fuel a _ dead _ man’s fears, hm?”

* * *

Jason wakes up slowly, awareness coming back to him in bits and pieces.

The first thing he notices is that he’s lying down on his back. A bed, soft and warm under him.

The second thing he notices are the voices; hushed, angry whispers that are not so much words as jumbled up sounds consisting of pure emotion.

He doesn’t realize that his eyes are open until he tries to open them, and finds his sight remains pitch black. It’s the room, no one’s turned on any lights, and Jason blinks slowly, trying to adjust to the darkness.

He strains his ears to hear, but the voices don’t get any clearer. If anything, they just get more incoherent, growing louder and louder until he winces as his eardrums ring against them painfully.

It’s starting to hurt, and Jason growls out, “_Shut up_,” immensely surprised when the voices actually stop. There’s only utter silence, deafening in its sudden arrival, and then-

“Jason?”

The concern in Dick’s tone drags back memories of recent events and Jason jerks away when he feels a hand on the skin of his arm - bare, he’s topless, when had he lost his clothes? - and struggles to push himself up into a sitting position.

“Jason, no, stop,” Dick says, exasperated. “You’re going to hurt yourself,”

Jason ignores him, even though Dick is right. When he’s finally upright, his chest and his side ache fiercely, but Jason’s too proud to lie back down.

A light flickers on, somewhere to his right, and Jason realizes as his eyes adjust to the sudden brightness that he’s in Dick’s room. Dick had been sitting in an armchair that had been dragged over to the side of the bed, and he looks almost as tired as Jason feels as he watches Jason warily.

“You’ve been out for twelve hours,” Dick tells him. “Alfred’s making dinner. Please eat?”

Twelve hours.

He’s spent a whole day at the manor, he realizes with annoyance. So much for wanting to get away from there.

“The Replacement’s here?” he grunts, getting out on the other side of the bed. Someone had removed the jeans too, he notes a little sourly as he looks down at his naked legs.

“_Tim _ is here, yeah.” Dick sighs behind him. “If you promise to eat, I’ll lend you my clothes. They’ll probably fit you better than your old ones.”

Jason rolls his eyes, turning to face him, knowing full well that he’s completely nude and taking smug pleasure when Dick’s gaze gravitates almost helplessly down to between Jason’s legs, a hint of a blush colouring his cheeks.

“What makes you think I need clothes?”

Dick manages to tear his gaze away from Jason’s groin and glares into Jason’s eyes, which doesn’t quite have the effect that he probably hopes for because he’s still blushing. 

“Damian’s ten, Jay, can we please keep the trauma-inducing incidents today at a bare minimum?”

Damian. Talia’s son. The little asshole that had thwarted Jason’s last escape attempt.

Jason snorts derisively. “You think the Demon Spawn hasn’t seen me naked before? Don’t worry your pretty little head about it Dickie, he doesn’t have the same tastes as mummy dearest.”

Dick pales before he’s on his feet suddenly, eyes blazing with anger. “How do you know Damian?” he demands protectively. “What did you do, Jason?”

“I probably know him better than you do,” Jason replies, crossing his arms over his chest. “Did you know his kill count was up to fifty before his eighth birthday? Guess I’m not the only murderer in this fucked up family.”

“He doesn’t kill anymore!” Dick fists bunch by his sides and he looks so angry now that Jason’s sure he’ll punch him, he just needs a little more of a-

“My mother took Todd in as an apprentice.”

Speak of the fucking devil.

It’s almost laughable how fast Dick goes from pissed off to frantically grabbing the closest thing to him that he can throw to make Jason preserve his modesty, which turns out to be the blankets on the bed. They slam into Jason with the force of Dick’s persistence, and Jason catches them instinctively with a glare, which Dick returns in kind.

“Cover yourself up,” Dick hisses at him

Damian steps further into the room. “Calm down, Grayson, I have bathed in the company of men far larger than Todd,” the little shit scoffs, which triggers a fit of choked disbelief from Dick.

“Damian, that’s not-!” he sputters, but Damian has all his attention set on Jason now, and ignores Dick completely.

“You have mated with Father,” Damian states, eyes narrowing.

Jason shrugs, smirking down at him.

“But Father is married to Grayson.”

“Damian!”

Damian spares Dick an eye-roll before he says, “You are a worthy warrior but you have the intellect of a rodent. Yet somehow, both Father and Grayson hold you in high standing.”

Well. _ That’s _certainly news to Jason.

“I will accept this union under the condition that you cease your criminal activities and allow Father and Grayson to make an honest spouse out of you.”

“_DAMIAN THOMAS WAYNE_!”

Jason would’ve burst out laughing if he didn’t think it would just hurt his ribs further. But Damian’s looking up at him with all the seriousness a ten-year-old ex-assassin could muster, and seriously? Jason might be angrier all the time now, but he’s still got his sense of humour perfectly intact.

And _ Jesus Christ _ on a fucking poke, Damian’s as ridiculously naïve as Jason remembers. At least _ that’s _ one thing that hasn’t changed, and Jason’s snort of laughter might’ve been tinged with a little more than just a bit of relieved hysteria.

“I’m not _ married _ to Bruce,” Dick protests as Jason tries to muffle his amusement, which irritates his ribs despite his best efforts. “Shut up, you’re not helping. And for god’s sake, get back in the bed before you hurt something else!”

Jason rolls his eyes, but the pain in his side is worsening, so he grudgingly sits back down on the bed, bunching the blankets over his lap. Maybe if he appeases Dick enough, he’ll let his guard down and Jason’ll be able to sneak past him and out of the manor.

“_Thank _ you,” Dick says forcefully, earning himself another eye-roll. “Damian, help me get dinner up here for Jason.”

“I am not a servant!”

“_Damian_.”

“Tt. _ Very well_.”

Jason watches, almost impressed that Dick’s managed to get the Demon Spawn to actually listen to him so quickly. The only person Jason’s ever seen tame the brat so casually had been Talia, and even then, Talia had once admitted that Damian’s temper was something she couldn’t withstand for too long.

From the way Damian had squared his shoulders and stomped away with barely a grumble under his breath, it’d seemed to Jason that Dick’s used to getting Damian to give in.

One more thing to add to the extensive list of things that Jason’s missed.

“I can hear you brooding from over here,” Dick says.

“I don’t brood,” Jason retorts. “I _ smoulder_.”

Dick’s moving around at the foot of the bed, rummaging through the drawers there, and then turns to throw a t-shirt and sweatpants at Jason. “Sure you do, big guy. And Batman secretly wears lacy thongs under his suit.”

Jason slips the shirt over his head, wincing when his ribs ache again. “You wish he would.”

Dick sighs, sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed. “A couple more days and I’ll crack him, just you wait,” he insists.

There’s a tension in the silence that follows his claim, and it’s not made any easier to bear when Dick rests his elbows on his knees, and his chin over the back of his folded hands, and just _ stares _ at Jason.

Doesn’t say anything, just stares and stares, in the semi-darkness of the room.

It’s unnerving, that earnest blue gaze levelled on him so directly, and Jason glares at him, hoping to hide the discomfort slowly creeping up his spine.

“I have about eight hours before my heat sets in,” Dick finally says after what feels like an eternity. “What will it cost to get you to stay for it?”


	2. Chapter 2

** Back Then  **

Dick only found out that Bruce was an omega by accident.

They’d just come back from patrol - both unscathed because Gotham had been pleasantly quieter than it usually was - and Bruce had made a beeline for the Batcomputer the moment they’d stepped foot in the Batcave.

Dick knew better than to interrupt the man in his post-patrol mood before he could get his reports done, so Dick had gone to take a shower first, dousing himself in cold water to wash away the night’s grime and adrenaline.

When he was done and dressed half an hour later, still drying his hair as he walked back over to the Batcomputer for a briefing, a loud, warning growl echoed throughout the cave; a harsh sound that sent the hairs on the back of Dick’s neck standing stiffly. His steps faltered and he froze.

There was a part of him that screamed for him to kneel, to lower his head and bare his neck in submission and show he wasn’t a threat to the owner of that growl, but the Robin part of him vehemently protested, more trained and sensible; it recognized that the growl was _ familiar_.

A peek beyond the towel he’d been using revealed Bruce standing in front of him, still half-dressed in his Batsuit. His cowl was pulled off, and his face looked flushed, his eyebrows furrowed as he stared sternly at Dick.

“Bruce?” Dick said softly, willing himself to stand still and tall.

Bruce’s eyes narrowed, and his lips pulled back in a snarl as he hunched his shoulders, making himself look bigger, meaner. It was an honestly terrifying sight, and Dick had to swallow back a whimper, straining not to move a muscle. Bruce made that growl again, but quieter, and after what felt like an eternity, he visibly relaxed his stance.

He was still scowling, but it wasn’t an all-out glare at least, and some semblance of recognition flashed in his eyes before he strode over to Dick - whose own eyes widened in apprehension but who refused to move in case that pissed off Bruce somehow - and wrapped a thick arm over the younger man’s shoulders.

Dick was stiff as a board as he allowed Bruce to pull him against his suited chest, and his mentor started nuzzling against his neck, at the juncture where Dick’s developing scent gland was. Dick grew more and more relaxed as Bruce scented him earnestly, and before he knew it, he was being honest-to-god _ cuddled_. By Batman.

It was the most bizarre thing that had ever happened to him in recent years. Bruce hadn’t held him or scented him like this since Dick was ten, and he was seventeen now.

He didn’t know what to do. Should he scent him back? Purr? Whimper? What did Bruce want- _ expect _him to do?

It took an embarrassingly long time for Dick to realize why Bruce was even behaving that way; that Bruce was in heat, suddenly, without warning. It didn’t take much longer to put two and two together after that. 

Alphas tended to hate being touched during their heats and betas were calmer, usually - and with Bruce’s territorial behaviour-

Dick reeled at the conclusion he came to.

He’d never seen Bruce while he was in heat, not even once. Bruce was careful about that kind of thing, so aware and cautious, to the point of social awkwardness. 

He would lock himself in his room, which was sealed from floor to ceiling with scent-blockers and dampeners that could deafen even a bomb going off, and Dick - young and blissfully unaware of the burdens of nature yet - would be incredibly confused, but largely unaffected. Bruce would only ever come out after the first two days were over, and even then, he wouldn’t risk going out on patrol. 

Younger Dick had even once loved those days when he was allowed to go solo, when all Bruce could do when Dick made decisions in the night that Bruce didn’t approve of was to chide him over the comms. At some point when he was younger, Dick had even thought Bruce’s first two days of heats were a blessing.

Now, melting under Bruce’s aggressive displays of scent-branding, Dick realized that it had been a _ preventive measure_.

Dick’s own heats hit him pretty hard. Stomach cramps, increased aggression, aching-burning-desperate need coursing through him for hours on end. The worst of his heat-fever usually lasted no more than a day and a half, but the first few hours always kept him delirious; driven to nothing but primal instinct. 

It’d gotten so bad for him that Bruce had developed a contraceptive drug that was especially designed to keep Dick’s body relaxed when his cycles came.

The cramps and desires would persist, but Dick would be too physically weak to do anything about them, nothing but burrow into his sheets until they eventually passed.

According to Alfred - because Bruce was just way too awkward and embarrassed to talk about sex with his underage ward - the heat traits that Dick experienced were common in omegas. Considering Dick didn’t have a knot, it was pretty clear to them that that was what he was.

It hadn’t occurred to him before that Bruce might possibly be one too, that perhaps Alfred’s extensive knowledge on omega heat cycles was because he’d had to deal with them himself when Bruce was younger.

Dick had always just assumed that Bruce was either an alpha - his terrible temper and allergy towards hugs definitely pointed in that direction - or a beta. For someone like Bruce to be an omega- even amidst the desire stirring his lower regions to life underneath the loose pants he’d pulled on after his shower, Dick felt a burst of pride and relief.

They were the _ same gender._

Dick had always hated being an omega because he’d wanted to be more like Bruce, to make Bruce proud. He’d wanted to be a beta too, or even deal with the social stigma of being an alpha, if only that would mean that he would be just like Bruce.

His relief at this discovery, however, was short-lived.

Dick felt disoriented as the world tilted and air whooshed past his ears and the ground disappeared from under his feet, and by the time he’d realized that it was because Bruce had actually slung him over one broad shoulder, the older man had already crossed half the Batcave.

“Bruce!” Dick said loudly, alarmed, pushing his upper body up against Bruce’s shoulder blades so that he could look behind him at the back of Bruce’s head. “Bruce, stop! Let me down!”

Bruce didn’t reply, his arm tightening instead where it was wrapped around Dick’s waist. His scent grew thicker in the space between them, cloying as he grew agitated once more. Dick had to suck in a breath and hold it to avoid breathing in any more of Bruce’s heat scent, because it was affecting him all too much.

“Bruce, please don’t make me hurt you,” Dick pleaded as he let out a breath, realizing with slight panic that Bruce was taking Dick to his room.

Once again, Bruce showed no signs of hearing him, and, a little desperate now as the door to Bruce’s bedroom came to view over Bruce’s head, Dick looked around and shouted, “ALFRED! ALFRED, HELP!”

“What’s all this shouting about, Master Richard?” came the wry voice of the old man, just from round the corner of the hallway, and Dick twisted his body in Bruce’s hold, contorting until he managed to pull free of the stiff arm keeping him in place. He kept wriggling until he found himself face-planting onto the carpeted floor.

That hurt, even though he’d been expecting it, and Dick let out a tiny grunt of pain before quickly vaulting forward and onto his feet blindly. He sensed more than saw Bruce whirl around with a warning growl, and Dick just about managed to jump out of reach of Bruce’s uncoordinated grab for him.

“Nope, not happening again!” Dick said nervously, backing up further and dodging more swipes.

He bumped into someone after a couple more steps, and twisted around until he had Alfred firmly between Bruce and himself, gripping onto the older man’s shoulders tightly as he peeked over it at his mentor.

“Master _ Bruce_,” Alfred chided, and Dick gaped when Bruce _ actually _ stopped, standing stock-still a few inches away from Alfred. He shifted his glare from Dick’s face over Alfred’s shoulder to the old man himself, and his expression became less angry, more cowed. 

“Cease this inappropriate behaviour this instance,” Alfred said in a tone that brooked no argument. “If you’d wanted company for your cycle, you should _ ask _ first. Master Richard is not one of your boorish supermodels.”

“Thanks, Alf,” Dick said in a wry tone.

Alfred sniffed daintily in response, but it was Bruce that surprisingly spoke next. 

“Give him to me,” he ground out, sounding just a little bit breathless, eyes drifting over back to Dick.

“Not in your state, I won’t,” Alfred denied. “Now run along to your room, Master Bruce. I’ll have supper brought to you soon.”

Bruce growled again, his hands clenching into fists by his sides, his shoulders hunching like they had in the Batcave. But he didn’t move, didn’t try to take Dick by force. Dick counted the seconds nervously, wondering if he should get away from Alfred to spare the old man any undeserved violence, when Bruce finally huffed in a put-out manner before turning around and stomping away.

The sound of his door slamming shut and locking firmly was like a nail hammering into a coffin. Dick was relieved, but- he hadn’t been unaffected by Bruce’s scenting, and even though he knew it would’ve been wrong to take advantage of Bruce in his condition, he’d felt- well, he’d felt _ good_, and now he was probably going to have blue balls all week.

“Shall I bring you some tea, Master Richard?”

Alfred’s question shocked him out of his thoughts, and Dick hastily let go of his shoulders and backed away from him. “Sorry, Alfred,” he said, but Alfred simply waved the apology away. “No, thank you. I think- I think I’m just gonna head to bed.”

Alfred eyed him knowingly, and Dick had to actively try not to blush under his scrutiny. “Very well, Master Richard,” Alfred said after what felt like an eternity. “I’ll see you in the afternoon, then.”

“Afternoon?” Dick echoed, raising a brow.

Alfred did an Alfred equivalent of a shrug and replied dryly, “It’s 6 am at the moment. I’m sure you’re very tired.” He paused dramatically and added, “I believe Master Bruce would also appreciate some time alone to gather his wits without the distraction of a viable mate in proximity.”

\---

It was another three days before Dick finally saw Bruce again.

His mentor looked like he hadn’t slept for months, black bags under his eyes like paint dragged across his skin, but he seemed otherwise fine. 

He was in pajamas and a robe at the dining table, at 2pm in the afternoon, but he was reading the newspaper calmly; so while it was an unusual sight, it was a massive improvement to the Bruce from that night in the Batcave.

Still, Dick was cautious as he took a seat to Bruce’s right, thanking Alfred when he poured a cup of coffee for him.

“You’re too young to be drinking that,” Bruce said in an absent tone, glancing up at Dick before looking back down at the paper.

“I’m seventeen,” Dick said defensively as he added six spoonfuls of sugar to the coffee. “Alfred said you were drinking coffee since you were _ ten_.”

Bruce shot Alfred an accusatory look which Alfred expertly ignored in favour of refilling Bruce’s cup before he left, leaving the two of them alone in a silence that was quickly becoming awkward.

Dick had so many things he wanted to ask Bruce, but he didn’t know where to start. He didn’t know if Bruce would get angry if he did, but curiousity had been eating away at him since that first night Bruce’s heat had set in. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep biting his tongue before he would drive himself insane.

Dick stared down hard at his cup, methodically stirring the black liquid round and round with his spoon, watching it slosh gently from side to side.

“I suppose there’s no easy way to get this over with?” Bruce said suddenly, and Dick smiled, looking up from his coffee to meet the older man’s tired gaze.

“You know me better than that, Bruce.”

Bruce made a face before sighing. “Yes, I’m an omega,” he said, folding the newspaper and placing it on the table. “I’ve been on birth control since I was in my twenties, when my heats were as bad as yours.”

“But you said those wouldn’t help me,” Dick interrupted, confused.

Bruce had the grace to look ashamed, explaining, “I have never planned to have children of my own, Dick. Prolonged use of birth control can cause infertility in omegas, and I didn’t want you to go through that without understanding the gravity of the consequences.”

Dick felt a twinge of annoyance then, frowning. “Isn’t that _ my _choice?” he said, tone bordering on resentful. “Maybe I never planned to have kids either.”

Bruce levelled a stare at him, that Bruce Wayne patented I-know-better-than-you look that Dick hated because Bruce was usually _ right _ whenever he got _ that _ look.

“Be that as it may, the long term effects of birth control are irreversible,” Bruce said. “You’re my responsibility, Dick. Every decision I make will always be in your best interest.”

Dick wanted to argue about that - he hated whenever Bruce said that because it wasn’t hecking fair. Dick was his own person, and he’d gone through things people twice his age could never even imagine. Bruce treating him like a child when Dick spent most nights saving his ass while fighting crime was hypocritical at best.

But the omega thing was more important, and Bruce was actually _ talking _ about it. He wasn’t going to let that opportunity slip by because of his dissatisfaction with Bruce’s poor parenting skills.

“Fine,” Dick said, rolling his eyes. “Well, if you’ve been on birth control, what happened that night?”

Bruce winced at the reminder, his cheeks curiously colouring ever so slightly. “I missed a dose,” he admitted grudgingly. “My heat came early because of that. I- I’m sorry for how I behaved.”

Dick smiled then, unable to help himself. He leaned forward and reached a hand out, resting it on Bruce’s forearm and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “It’s alright. I was scared as heck, but you were still in control enough to scent me before you went all caveman mode. It helped.”

Bruce smiled back, a slight lift of the lips that made him look incredibly young. “My heat won’t be over until the end of this week,” he said quietly. “Since it’s out in the open now- would you mind indulging this old man for a few more days?”

Dick’s smile widened. “If that’s you flirting then your playboy reputation is extremely exaggerated, _ old man_,” he joked. “Luckily for you, I’m pretty easy.”

Bruce frowned, and a whiff of protective anger soured the air. “If someone called you easy-” he started, only to be silenced when Dick raised a hand in front of him.

“I’m kidding,” he said, but he couldn’t help feeling pleased at Bruce’s indignation on his behalf.

Bruce was a blank book most days, and even with how well Dick knew him, he couldn't always tell what Bruce was feeling. He was starting to like this version of Bruce, who seemed to still be affected enough by his heat that he wore his emotions on his sleeve.

“Come on,” Dick said, standing up and grabbing Bruce’s wrist as he did, tugging gently. “I know you’re dying to cuddle and I’m pretty sure Alfred won’t appreciate us breaking the dining table.”

\---

Three months later, things got bad.

Despite their emotional week together, tensions between them had risen higher than before.

Bruce was- well, _ Bruce_. They got into more arguments than Dick could count, even out on patrol, and most of them ended with Dick close to angry tears.

He couldn’t understand why Bruce couldn’t understand _ him_, why Bruce kept pushing when Dick refused to move, why Bruce kept ignoring him when Dick needed him to listen. Dick hated it.

Dick hated _ him_.

And then the Joker happened and-

“You’re _ firing _ me?” Dick asked, voice high with disbelief.

It had been a _ lucky shot_. Dick had been perfectly fine, the Joker hadn’t even expected to actually hit him, but Dick had stumbled, just that tiny bit, a minuscule mistake that not even Bruce had noticed - or so Dick had thought. It had been enough for the bullet to tear into him, but it had been a clean shot.

Bruce couldn’t actually be serious, asking Dick to- Bruce might as well have taken a gun to him himself.

Bruce didn’t even have the balls to look at him, and Dick started feeling light headed from his growing anger. With Bruce’s brusqueness and the awful pain in his shoulder and all the blood he’d just lost and his heat coming up in just a few days-

“You’re going to college,” Bruce said, still not looking at him, his black cape and cowl effectively hiding him from Dick’s eyes. “Stay there.”

“But Bruce-” Dick started, rising from the bed.

“You’re not Robin anymore,” Bruce growled, and the sound stilled Dick’s movements. “This is not up for discussion. Once you’re well enough to move, Alfred will arrange for a car to take you back to Hudson.”

Bruce _ was _ serious, Dick realized then, his anger quickly turning to panicked desperation. It was so bad that he could smell it on himself; thick, whelming fear and helplessness spreading throughout the room like a blanket laying heavily over them. Even when he’d been bleeding out hours earlier, he hadn’t felt this kind of terror.

“Bruce,” he managed to choke out, quiet and pleading. Afraid. “Bruce, _ please_.”

Bruce made no indication of hearing him, still as stone in the doorway.

“This is all I have,” Dick breathed.

Bruce turned his head down, his shoulders tightening under his armor. “Every decision I make is in your best interest, Dick,” he said, flat and uncompromising.

The sound of his cape fluttering behind him as he left echoed loudly in Dick’s ears, accompanied by his own heart-wrenching sobs.

\---

And then Jason Todd appeared out of fucking nowhere, dragging with him years of abandonment issues and reintroducing the feeling of not being good enough, of _ never _ being _ good enough _ back into Dick’s readjusting life.

It hadn’t even been a year yet, and Bruce hadn’t even had the decency to tell him about it himself.

Granted, Dick had never bothered to call him or visit Gotham even between semesters and Titans business, but wasn’t that what Bruce had wanted? Hadn’t it been Bruce that had told him not to come back? He’d done everything Bruce asked of him, he always had, and it still-

“Perhaps you should go speak with him.”

Kory sounded careful, her words cautious and encouraging at the same time, and Dick immediately felt guilty. He’d gone silent in the middle of a conversation with her, and doubtless she could smell the fury emanating from him.

“It’s not that simple,” Dick ground out, the newspaper crinkling in his tight grip as he tried to calm himself down.

“Dick,” Kory said, and then her hands were on his, her warmth enveloping him as she hugged him from behind. “I believe you are the one that told me talking things through solves more problems than violence ever could.”

“I’m not being violent.”

“The newspaper would beg to differ. Calm, my friend.”

Kory pried his fingers open gently, rubbing his hands in a soothing manner until he relaxed on instinct, her pheromones exuding calm. She let go of him long enough to pull the newspaper away and throw it aside before holding him again, resting her chin over his head.

“You are not easy to talk to as well, in some regards,” she murmured.

“We talk _ all _the time,” Dick said, frowning.

“_You _ talk all the time,” she corrected, sounding amused. “You are very talented in a human avoidance tactic called ‘deflecting’.”

“Have you been gossiping about me with Roy again?”

“He has proven to be very insightful. You are doing it right now.”

“I’m not deflecting.”

“Then will you return to Gotham?”

Dick didn’t answer immediately, which was answer enough for Kory because she sighed and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, hugging him tightly before letting him go.

“I will not force you,” she said. “But I believe you need this, Dick. Both of you.”

Did they? Dick didn’t know. There was just too many thoughts flitting through his mind, too many conflicting emotions he couldn’t quite filter through. What would he even say to Bruce?

_ Hey, saw a picture of you and some punk traipsing across rooftops the other day! Who’s my new kid brother? _

Yeah, that would end just _ swell_.

\---

The worst part was that Jason turned out to be a pretty okay kid.

Taking Kory’s advice, Dick had gone back to Gotham about a month since their conversation in the kitchen. Alfred had been surprised, but terribly pleased.

Bruce? Not so much.

After a lengthy, confrontational conversation in the Batcave, Dick had given up talking to the man. It hadn’t gone anywhere besides the outcome that Dick had predicted; Bruce had closed off from him, pushing him away like he always had.

The only thing Dick had gotten was the admission that Bruce had regretted the loneliness which had followed Dick’s departure from Gotham, that Jason Todd had been more a means for him to cope with that loneliness than the actual need for a partner in crime-fighting. Instead of feeling pleased with the confession, Dick had felt guilty and even angrier.

Guilty for leaving Bruce alone and causing him pain, but angry for how unfairly Bruce was treating - using - Jason to fill the void Dick had left behind. No kid deserved that kind of treatment, especially not someone that had come from the rough background that Jason did.

Bruce had asked to be left alone, and so Dick had conceded and retreated to his old room, tired and frustrated.

He’d been lying on his bed, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling, when a young, unbroken voice came from his open door.

“You’re him, aren’t you? The first Robin.”

Dick turned his head to look over at the owner of the voice, taking in the boyishly handsome face, the slender figure, the messy hair.

“You’re Jason Todd,” Dick said unnecessarily.

The kid puffed out his chest, grinning with pride. He already smelled like Bruce, like fire and earth, and underneath that, a tempting fragrance of seasalt and blooming daffodils. It was an oddly salty-sweet combination for someone so young, and Dick idly wondered if it would be rude to ask the kid what his gender was.

“It’s so awesome to finally meet you,” Jason said, blushing a little, looking all the younger. “Alf’s told me shit tons about you.”

“Language,” Dick chided automatically, and then forced a smile. “Nothing embarrassing, I hope.”

Jason’s grin widened. “Nothing more embarrassing than your Robin shorts,” he said, and that surprised a genuine laugh out of Dick.

He sat up, shifting until he was sitting on the edge of the bed with his legs thrown over the side. He patted at the space next to him. “C’mere, kid.”

Jason seemed to beam brighter at the invitation, bounding into the room with relentless energy and plopping down next to Dick, close enough that their thighs touched. Dick was surprised at how firm Jason’s felt, and absently wondered how long Bruce had been training the kid. How long, exactly, had Bruce let this kid into his life.

Jason tilted his head, pulling Dick’s attention to his scent gland, and Dick smiled, deciding to indulge him as he leaned down and nuzzled against Jason’s soft skin.

“How long will you be staying?” Jason asked as Dick scented him. “I was thinking we could train together. You could give me some pointers, you know? Stuff like that. I’m pretty new to this ass-kicking shtick.”

“Pointers huh?” Dick hummed, pulling away. “I don’t know, you looked like you were handling yourself pretty well in the news.”

Jason blushed at the praise, painfully oblivious to the hidden resentment in Dick’s tone. He seemed so _ innocent_, and maybe that was just cynicism talking - years of Bruce’s stoicism and facing Gotham’s criminal underground on a daily basis could do that to you - but Dick immediately felt guilty again for his passive aggressive behaviour, regardless of whether or not Jason was aware of it. It wasn’t Jason’s fault, after all.

Knowing Bruce, he’d probably kept Jason in the dark about the reason why Dick had left Gotham in the first place. How Bruce had _ forced _ Dick out of Gotham.

“I’ve seen you fight,” Jason’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts, quiet with misplaced reverence. “I mean, I’m good, but even I know I’m not _ that _ good.” He smirked, all arrogance and youthful confidence, and added, “At least not yet.”

Dick grinned back at him, catching him in a chokehold. “Oh yeah? Is that what you think?” he growled out playfully, and Jason laughed as he struggled to get out of Dick’s arms. “You gonna prove that to me, little wing?”

Jason froze, going silent as suddenly as the drop of a pin, and Dick immediately let him go, alarmed and concerned that he might’ve done something that had triggered bad memories for the boy. It wasn’t like Dick _ wanted _ to hurt him.

Before Dick could pull back very far, Jason reached up and caught his arms, gripping him tight and holding him still. He had his head downturned, so Dick couldn’t see his expression, but his voice was soft and- _ fragile_, was all Dick could think of in that instant, when he spoke.

“Say that again,” he asked, and Dick relaxed, pulling him closer into his side.

“Little wing?” he said, and if Jason’s shoulders started trembling and the air smelled a little saltier from more than just the kid’s scent, well- Dick didn’t think anyone but them needed to know about it.

\---

Jason was two years younger than Dick, but by the time Dick was twenty, the kid towered over him like a tank.

It wasn’t fair at all.

It seemed to happen overnight, too. Granted, Dick hadn’t had the chance to visit Gotham for the past six months - Blüdhaven was ten times worse than Gotham when it came to crime rates, and Dick was kept amply busy - so Jason’s rapid growth probably hadn’t been as dramatic as Dick stubbornly insisted.

Still, Dick had stopped growing by the time he’d first met Jason, and he didn’t find it fair that the little kid that used to tag along with him everywhere whenever he was around - grabbing onto his shirt and asking for corn dogs, tugging on his arm to insist they trained more, just hanging around Dick and looking up to him like someone _ worth _ looking up to - was now a goliath of a man that looked like he could easily pin Dick down without breaking a sweat.

The only consolation Dick got was that Jason seemed to still not be used to his own size and girth.

Jason had always been a cocky little thing, quicker to anger and spit vitriol at the criminals he and Batman faced than either Bruce or Dick had ever been, but when Dick observed him at the dinner table on his first night back to the manor since forever, Jason looked _ nervous_.

Dick could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Jason Todd nervous, and he would still have fingers to spare.

It was bizarre and managed to put off Dick’s jealousy at Jason’s height, because Jason couldn’t even look him in the eye as they ate and talked. He sat in his chair with his shoulders hunched up to his ears, eyes fixed firmly on the table and left leg bouncing incessantly under it.

He would blush whenever Dick teased him, but instead of shooting back a sarcastic retort or giving back as good as he got like he usually would, he simply averted his gaze and fell silent until Dick would drop it.

It was amusing, at first. But when Alfred brought in dessert and Bruce offered to allow them both to drink champagne for the special occasion, and Jason didn’t so much as _ grin_, well. _ Then _ Dick just started to worry.

Was he alright? Had something happened to him while Dick was away? Had Bruce gone too far in telling him off about a mistake he’d made? Dick kept laughing and talking and joking - mostly with Bruce since Jason’s mind was MIA - but inside, he was dying to speak to his adoptive little brother alone.

Jason excused himself immediately after dessert though, his champagne flute still half-full on the table, and Dick didn’t even have a chance to ask him to stay before he was gone.

“Go easy on him,” Bruce said when Dick frowned worriedly at the now-vacant space Jason had been occupying just moments before. “Not everyone is as lucky as you with puberty.”

“I had horrible acne until Alfred changed my diet,” Dick said, wincing as he remembered that terrible period of his teenage years.

Bruce smiled, wistful and, for some reason, sad. “I trust you to know how to handle him,” he said, and his tone was as serious as if he were in his Batsuit. “You’ve always been better with him than I ever was anyway.”

“So now I’m your glorified babysitter?”

“You know what I mean.”

Dick waved a hand at him dismissively with a grin. “I know, Bruce, I’m just kidding.” Then he frowned, looking back at Jason’s empty seat. “So it’s just the hormones, right? He’s okay?”

“As okay as any eighteen-year-old is when they dress up as Robin every night to fight crime.”

Dick gasped, feigning shock as he looked over at Bruce. “Is that a joke I hear? From _ Bruce Wayne_? Something really _ is _ wrong.”

Bruce didn’t deign to reply, but Dick knew he was hiding a smile on his lips as he took a sip of his champagne. “If you’re up for it, I’m sure Robin would appreciate going out on patrol with Nightwing tomorrow.”

Dick grinned. “That might be one of your greatest ideas ever, Batman.”

\---

Dick regretted agreeing to go out on patrol with just Jason, not an hour since they’d left the manor.

He’d intended to talk to the kid in the morning, after dinner the previous night, but Jason had been out of the manor all day, and only came back in time for Bruce to brief them on anything to look out for before they headed out. Dick had tried to engage him in conversation, but Jason had responded with only monosyllabic answers, and Dick had quickly run out of things to say that didn’t border on whiny and pushy.

Jason hadn’t even sounded like he was being rude either. He was just- short. Brief. To the point. Nothing at all like the potty-mouthed, cocky little kid that Dick was used to know not even half a year ago, and Dick was so caught up in trying to think up ways to get Jason to just _ talk _ to him that he hadn’t realized they’d walked right into a trap.

It was the most ridiculously elementary mistake he could’ve made, and Dick was pissed at himself as he dodged bullets and swung from rafter to rafter in the supposedly-abandoned warehouse at the docks that someone had tipped had a hidden weapons cache owned by the Penguin.

There wasn’t a weapons cache, as far as Dick had found, but there had been twenty - maybe even more - armed thugs waiting for them, and even Nightwing and Robin together were just barely holding their own.

[**Keep your distance and do not engage**, ** I’m on my way**,] Batman said into their comms, and _ shit_, it had been a while since Nightwing’s had to hear that from him.

“What’s wrong, pretty boy? Too afraid to face me?”

“Come on down, Nightwing! We’ve got a special welcome gift for you!”

“Bat’s not here to save you this time, kid!”

Dick was used to the name-calling and taunting; hell, he’d faced thugs that had explicitly described in painful detail just what they were going to do to Nightwing’s suit and ass when they got their hands on him. None of it had ever phased him, because he was better than that. He was trained by the best.

But that last line-

_ Fuck_, but it had been a while since anyone had said _ that _ , and Nightwing was _ pissed _ for a whole other reason.

Against his better judgment, Nightwing grappled down from the alcove he’d taken cover in in the roof of the warehouse and tackled a giant thug into the ground, slamming the butt of one of his escrima sticks into the side of the thug’s head. 

Another thug came barreling from his left, and Nightwing backflipped off of the one he’d tackled, catching his foot on the charging thug’s chin with enough force that the man was sent flying backwards with a choked cry of pain.

[**Nightwing**, ** what are you doing**?!] he heard Robin hiss with disbelief into his ear, just as Nightwing took out another thug swinging a baseball bat at his head.

“Having fun, what does it look like I’m doing?” he grunted out, ducking as another thug threw a punch at him. He holstered his sticks and pummeled into the guy’s chest with his fists, dropping to the ground when another thug behind him tried to grab him.

The thug ended up grabbing his own friend instead, and Nightwing laughed breathlessly, swinging his legs to kick theirs out from under them before rolling backwards and out of the way. 

“I love a good bromance once in a while,” he joked at the sight of the knocked-out thugs, wrapped up in each other on the floor.

[**Duck**!]

Without hesitating, Nightwing crouched low, and Robin came gliding out of the shadows over his head, tackling a thug armed with a crackling stun baton that had been behind Nightwing.

Robin made quick work of the thug, kneeling over his chest and grabbing his wrist before twisting it until the thug dropped the baton with a cry of pain. Robin kicked the baton away, pulling the thug up and slamming a fist into his face in a singular, brutal hit that knocked him out instantly.

“Be _ careful_!” Robin growled over at Nightwing as he dropped the thug completely to the floor. “You heard what Batman said!”

Nightwing rolled his eyes, vaulting into the air towards Robin, who grabbed his right leg instinctively as Nightwing sailed over him, and tossed the older man in the direction of three thugs charging their way. Nightwing planted his feet into the chest of the one in the middle and drew his escrima sticks before slamming them into the faces of the ones flanking the downed thug.

“We’re handling it!” Nightwing said over his shoulder as he roundhouse-kicked the stunned thug to his right and swung one of his sticks into the head of the thug on his left, knocking them both out. He barely heard Robin’s responding growl of annoyance.

The rest of the remaining thugs - fifteen left, a quick count told him - fanned out to surround the two of them, and Nightwing gave Robin a smug grin.

“I’ll take the big three on the right,” he said, but Robin was frowning, facing the thugs warily as he backed away, closer to Nightwing.

“Something’s wrong,” he muttered under his breath. “Why aren’t they attacking anymore?”

Nightwing was about to tell him to lighten up when he finally picked it up - a quiet, repetitive beep-beep-beeping coming from below him, and he looked down, just about too late as he was blinded by an explosion of dust and concrete.

The last thing he heard as the ground beneath him disappeared and he fell rapidly downwards, his vision tunneling, was Jason’s angry shout of, [**_Nightwing_**!] ringing in his ears.

\---

Dick’s head felt thick and heavy, throbbing incessantly with pain as he came to.

It didn’t take long for him to remember what had happened, why his whole body felt like it’d just gone through a huge, human-sized blender, but his memories didn’t explain why there was also the familiar, dreaded warmth of an on-setting heat simmering under his skin. Nor did he know why he was strapped down to a gyne chair in a dark, damp room that looked like it came straight out of Arkham Asylum.

Dick struggled in the thick, leather straps that were wrapped over his wrists and his forearms, keeping them flat against the chair on either side of his head. The same straps kept his legs secured to stirrups that forced him into an obscene, spread-eagled position that sent waves of apprehension crawling up his back. 

Dick silently prayed to every god there was that his early heat was a complete coincidence and nothing to do with the position he’d found himself in.

“I’d settle down if I was you, boy,” came the familiar voice of Oswald Cobblepot from somewhere to his left.

Several lights flashed on overhead, blinding Dick momentarily, and he felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead when his eyes adjusted and he was able to take in the room more clearly.

It really did look like a run down clinic, with stained, off-white tiled walls and rusting metal trays scattered throughout. It wasn’t any larger than a hotel room, and on the other side of it, facing Dick directly, was a camera standing on a tripod, an ominous red light blinking to the right of the lens.

He was being recorded.

Dick had to force his racing heart to calm, force an unaffected expression on his face - still masked, he was relieved to notice - and craned his neck to look up at Cobblepot, who was approaching him from a corner of the room. He looked just as ugly as Dick remembered last seeing him, but he had a smug smirk on his face as he approached.

“The drugs ought to be kickin’ in by now,” he said knowingly, and Dick almost flinched when he rested a large, heavy hand on Dick’s left thigh, patting it gently like he was calming a skittish animal. 

“Let’s hope ya ain’t an alpha, boy. Or per’aps that’d make the experience betta’?” Cobblepot licked his lips salaciously, and Dick couldn’t help but sneer with disgust at the sight. “See, I been waitin’ a _ long _time to get one o’ you bats in ‘ere.”

Cobblepot ran his hand down the length of Dick’s thigh, and even through his suit, the heat under Dick’s skin bloomed desperately for more, despite the derision rising in Dick’s gut. Cobblepot’s hand stroked almost affectionately, casually stopping to cup at Dick’s armoured groin and patting the area twice with a leer.

“Nice of you to wait until I outgrew the boy shorts, Oz. Guess we can cross out pedophile from your rap sheet, huh.”

Cobblepot’s leer morphed into an amused smile. “Ya won’t be laughin’ when I’m through wit’ ya,” he promised darkly.

He withdrew his hand, much to Dick’s relief, and stepped away, waddling over to the camera and holding a walkie up to his mouth. “Bring ‘em in, boys,” he growled, and Dick tensed up, trying to mentally prep himself for what was about to come.

A section of the wall to the right of the camera slid open, and three thugs shuffled in, carrying black bags of varying sizes. They set the bags next to the wall, and Dick bit his lip as a wave of their pheromones wafted over to him. 

He felt slick begin to drip out of his entrances in response, his body reacting faster and more instinctively than Dick would have liked. It was a natural reaction to viable mates, Dick told himself, his fists clenching and unclenching almost subconsciously on either side of his head. 

It didn’t matter that these men were criminals or the scum of society; their bodies were healthy and strong, ready to breed, and Dick hadn’t had an uncontrolled heat for too fucking long. _ Of course _ he was going to react.

(Didn’t stop him from feeling disgusted with himself, though.)

One of the thugs approached him, grinning toothily as he reached over to run his hands down Dick’s sides, and Dick smiled back, waiting for the moment the thug would try to take off his suit.

“AAARGH!”

The thug fell in a convulsive heap on the floor, which was a pity because Dick couldn’t see him suffering after he’d attempted to slot his hands into the spaces between the plates around Dick’s hips.

“Wot the fuck’s wrong with ‘im?” Cobblepot demanded, and the other two thugs ran over to their friend, only to jump back quickly as the aftershocks sizzled off of the fallen man. 

“You!” Cobblepot snarled, pointing a finger at Dick. “Wot’d ya do, ya little bitch?”

Dick shrugged awkwardly, expression a perfect picture of innocence. “He didn’t say please.”

Cobblepot was across the room in three strides, and Dick grunted as he was backhanded sharply, his face falling to the side as pain spread across his cheek. It stung, and Dick felt liquid trickling down his skin; one of Cobblepot’s rings had probably cut him. Fantastic.

“Try that smart act again and I’ll ‘ave ya thrown into the shark tank,” Cobblepot hissed.

“Something’s wrong with his suit, boss,” one of the remaining thugs piped up. “Beaver was tryin’ ta take it off and it shocked him. I saw.”

“Is that so?” Cobblepot frowned down at Dick, who glared back at him. “I suppose ya won’t tell me ‘ow ta get ‘round that, will ya?”

“Buy me dinner first,” Dick suggested.

Cobblepot sneered, and to Dick’s surprise, smiled. It was a nasty smile though, and he said, “It’s still early yet. We’ll see ‘ow long ya can last when the heat fever reaches peak in an hour.”

An hour? Heats usually peaked after _ at least _ six hours; how long had Dick actually been out?

The question must’ve shown on his face, because Cobblepot’s smile widened and he explained, “Drug’s a real beauty, boy. Accelerates and draws out heats simultaneously. Gem o’ a thing.” 

He patted Dick’s cheek where he’d hit him, intentionally dragging his thumb across the cut there, and Dick involuntarily let out a hiss of pain. “Yer one lucky bastard,” he said before chortling loudly.

Dick jerked his head out of the Penguin’s hold, glaring hard at the man. His skin had felt good on Dick’s, and that had probably been exactly why Cobblepot was being so touchy with him in the first place. The physical contact was making his heat worse, setting it in quicker.

It made the simmering warmth burn stronger, and Dick was hardening under his suit, thankfully hidden by his groin armour. It was uncomfortable as hell, and Dick’s vision was blurring around the edges, his mind slowly fogging up with desire.

He bit down on his lip to keep himself from moaning as the Penguin dragged his hand down the side of Dick’s neck instead, gripping at Dick’s scent gland for a moment before releasing him completely.

“If ya play nice, old Cobblepot might breed ya ‘imself,” Cobblepot said, his tone lower and more gravelly.

“Screw you,” Dick breathed out, realizing with shame that he was panting, that his face was burning - no doubt blushing bright red - and his thighs were trembling in the straps. 

He breathed through his mouth, long and slow, and squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to ignore the familiar ache of arousal thrumming between his spread legs.

“I just might,” he heard Cobblepot say, followed by four sets of footsteps thudding away.

It was much easier to breathe without the four of them in the room with him, and Dick counted to one hundred in his head, trying to force his body under control. He was still painfully aroused, and his stomach was starting to cramp up, but he could still _ think_.

Except, after five minutes, the scent of pheromones still lingered faintly in the air and Dick forced his eyes open, looking around. There were air vents on the left corner of the ceiling, and he could see faint clouds of gas filtering through the grates. 

Dick ground his jaw in annoyance. The fucking _ bastards_. He should’ve known they wouldn’t play fair.

He couldn’t hold his breath forever, but if Cobblepot was telling the truth about the drug they’d administered, then breathing in the pheromones they were pumping into the room left him with, what? Forty minutes before he completely lost his sanity to the heat fever?

He had to get out of there.

Batman and Robin would come, assuming they were okay - and fuck, Dick hadn’t even thought of them, hadn’t even considered that Cobblepot might have Robin somewhere too, strapped down and trussed up like a breeding mule, and the thought had Dick seeing _ red_, had his blood pumping faster with rage and vengeance, with the driving need to protect what was _ his _ \- but Dick didn’t know how long that would be.

His heats had always hit him hard.

An artificially-induced heat accelerated by unknown chemicals- Dick didn’t even want to consider what he was about to experience.

A sharp cramp shot through the right side of his abdomen and Dick gasped under his breath, arms straining in their bonds as his upper body spasmed forward. It didn’t hurt, not yet, but it wasn’t anything remotely pleasant.

Every cramp was usually followed by a throbbing in his front entrance too, and- yep, _ there _it was.

Dick’s hips twitched at the sensation, searching for relief, and he swallowed back a groan, throwing his head back against the chair in an effort to ground his mind. His skin prickled under his suit, desperate to be freed and touched, and Dick caught himself rubbing his cheek against the side of his arm, trying to gain at least _ some _ semblance of contact to abate the strengthening desires of his heat.

“Feelin’ it already, eh?” Cobblepot’s voice resounded throughout the room, too loud and riddled with static over the shit-quality speakers. “Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.”

Dick wanted to tell him to shut up, but another cramp came on, stronger than before, and all coherent thought flew out his mind as his entrance practically gushed out a slew of slick, so thick and copious that it felt like a water balloon had exploded in the seat of his lower suit. Dick squirmed at the disgusting feeling, unused to being so _ wet_.

At home, Dick would always have a pad, or a tampon. He would always change regularly, taught by Alfred that stewing in your own slick for too long was unhygienic and opening a doorway for all sorts of infections and STDs.

It probably hadn’t been Alfred’s intention, but his advice had scared Dick shitless of his own slick when he was younger; he always made sure to be _ clean _ with his genitals, with his personal hygiene in general, because the thought of germs anywhere in the vicinity of his precious privates-

Dick felt his eyes sting as tears gathered in them, and he lifted his hips as high off the chair as he could, wishing desperately that he could release the slick out of his suit. He didn’t want to get _ sick_, he didn’t want to be _ dirty_, and then another cramp surprised a groan out of him.

“Hng!” The muscles in Dick’s thighs trembled as he strained to keep his hips still and elevated, but his entrance _ throbbed_, long and intense, and he cried out as he distinctly felt his insides _ pulse _, searching for something to settle against them, to rub them raw and fill them with seed.

“Stop!” Dick whined out, jerking in his restraints. “Make it stop! _ Gahh_!”

His eyes had squeezed shut in his torment, and Dick jerked in surprise when he felt a hand on his face, realizing only just vaguely that it was the Penguin’s. He’d come back. Dick hadn’t even noticed him come back.

“Ya ready to tell me ‘ow ta get this suit off then?” the man growled out. His face was flushed, and it was obvious that he was affected by Dick’s heat scent.

Dick nodded jerkily, keening in the back of his throat. “H-hands!” he gasped, shaking his arms in their restraints. “Wo-works with handprints-”

Cobblepot’s eyes were dazed, unfocused, but he seemed to still retain enough sense to look suspicious at the explanation.

Dick jerked his hips again, pleading, “_Please_!”

It was enough to throw Cobblepot back into his muddle of want, and within seconds, Dick’s hands were freed. Dick pushed himself up into a more upright position and fumbled with the straps on his legs. With a click of his tongue, Cobblepot grabbed his arms to stop him.

“Wot’re ya doin’-” he demanded, but Dick shuts him up with a quick, aggressive kiss on his lips that left Cobblepot’s face even redder than before.

“Need to get the suit off,” Dick explained breathlessly when he pulled away, and Cobblepot - dazed with desire - let his arms go.

_ Asshole_, Dick thought with smug satisfaction as he continued to free both his legs from the chair.

Cobblepot didn’t see it coming, of course, as Dick twisted out of the chair and threw himself onto the shorter man. He wrapped his thighs around Cobblepot’s neck - wincing at how _ good _ it felt to have pressure against his crotch, even through the thick armour - and dragged him down to the ground where he choked him until he passed out. 

Two of the thugs from before burst into the room as Dick pulled himself to his feet using the gyne chair as support.

“Hey, boys,” Dick greeted weakly, and the men charged at him.

Dick rolled his eyes and side-stepped them. They crashed into the wall behind him, and Dick swung a kick at the side of one of the men’s head, knocking him out instantly. “Aw, looks like _ you’re _disqualified.”

The other man growled as he recovered from his collision with the wall, and threw a punch at Dick, who evaded it before grabbing the length of the man’s arm and pulling him down, rolling him over his back. The man let out a shout of pain as he landed on the floor, his arm twisted in Dick’s hold, and Dick dislocated it with a practised jerk.

He was still screaming as Dick pressed his thigh against the man’s neck, and didn’t stop until he knocked him out like that.

Nobody else seemed to be coming, and Dick stood up before he stumbled and fell against a wall. Three cramps came consecutively, and Dick really _ did _want to tear his suit off, then.

He could feel the slick built up inside it, dripping down the sides of his legs and into his boots and his hole- his cunt felt so _ empty_. He wanted to be filled, to be fucked and bred, seeded to the brim with strong, powerful children.

He was so tempted to turn one of the unconscious men in the room over and fuck himself on one of their cocks - but not breed, just relief, that’s all he needed, he just needed _ release_, these men were too weak to be worthy of his brood - but before he could seriously consider it, someone else entered the room.

Dick sensed more than saw a hand reaching out for him, and he growled, blindly grabbing a thick wrist and dragging the owner of it to slam them into the wall. He heard a yelp, and ducked down, pulling the wrist with him. But whoever it was, they didn’t fall.

They rolled with Dick’s movements and turned until Dick had to let go to avoid twisting his own wrist, and Dick threw out a punch instead. His fist was caught by a bigger hand that completely engulfed his, and Dick threw out another punch, only to have that one caught too.

His arms were crossed in front of him, and Dick grunted angrily as his attacker used that against him, turning Dick around with his arms pulled over his head. Dick struggled, trying to jerk out of the assailant’s hold, but they were _ strong,_ not budging even a little bit as Dick used all his strength to push himself forward.

A short kick to the back of his knee had Dick on the ground almost instantly, and his captor uncrossed his arms to pull them down his sides, holding them in place behind his back. Dick whined as he tried to jerk his arms free, only to have his attacker press close against his back.

They were so _ warm_, so _ good_, and Dick panted as he pushed back into them, fingers scrambling to cup at the groin pressed against his ass. His captor jerked back, but Dick followed after them, whining louder.

“-wing! Nightwing, snap out of it!”

Belatedly, Dick realized his attacker was talking, and through the haze of lust that had clouded his mind, he found that he knew him, knew that voice. It was Jason.

“Fuck,” Dick murmured, whimpering as another cramp shot through him. 

He hunched over at the feeling, arms still held in Jason’s firm hold, and struggled to breathe as he forced himself to not thrust his hips back against Jason’s behind him. 

“Drugged,” he heaved out between pants, hoping Jason could hear him.

“Shit,” Jason said, and then Dick was being pulled to his feet and bundled into Jason’s arms like a little kid. “Do you know what it was?”

Dick buried his face into the crook of Jason’s neck, keening at the familiar scent of family - of JasonJasonJason, sweet, beautiful little wing, so strong and perfect for him - and shook his head as he closed his eyes. 

“Accelerant,” he breathed against Jason’s suit. He whimpered when Jason started moving, jostling him in his strong arms. “Inducer. Not good. _ You’re _ good.”

“You’re safe now, just hold on,” he heard Jason say. “Batman will figure it out.”

\---

Batman couldn’t figure it out.

It was a new drug, engineered from a compound of aphrodisiacs and relaxants that had been tempered with to beyond recognition, and all tests had showed that Dick was better off letting the drug run its course and make its own natural way out of his system. Besides the heat-inducing aspect, the drug was pretty much harmless with no lasting side effects Bruce could discern.

Dick spent the next several days holed up in his room, horrified at how he’d behaved in front of Jason. The whole thing had been his own fault, and Dick should’ve known better, should’ve set a better example for the younger man instead of making reckless decisions that could’ve cost them their lives.

The heat fever had passed after the first night was over, and the rest was just residual heat as usual, but Dick had still felt _ dirty _ and _ unclean_. He’d felt awful too, especially whenever he remembered how he’d tried to hump Jason dry when the kid had been trying to _ save _ him.

Dick was absolutely mortified, and even Alfred’s special waffles couldn’t coax him out of his room at Wayne Manor on the third - and last day - of his induced heat.

He was burrowed in a makeshift nest on his bed - consisting of his old clothes, several extra blankets stolen from Bruce and Alfred’s rooms, and a couple of Jason’s hoodies that were too small for him now - when the door to his room burst open before being slammed shut again.

Dick pulled the shirt that had been covering his head to the side, just enough to see who had trespassed on his sanctuary, and then promptly buried himself under it again.

“You can’t just hide away in here until you go back to Blüdhaven,” Jason said, his tone low and angry.

“Says who,” Dick mumbled, more to himself than to the younger man.

“_Dick_.”

Dick didn’t move, not realizing that he was holding his breath until a section of his nest was torn apart and pulled away, and he gasped breathlessly as he was exposed.

“Jason!” he shouted, hastily grabbing the nearest thing to cover his nakedness.

Jason was glaring, but he seemed to realize Dick’s state of undress because he blushed darkly, his eyes widening as they landed on Dick’s bared legs before he quickly looked away.

“Why are you naked?” Jason grumbled, dropping the destroyed half of Dick’s nest to cross his arms over his chest, pouting like he was fifteen again.

“Because I’m _ nesting _ and I like it,” Dick snapped back. “Don’t you have anything better to do than go around ruining other people’s nests?”

Jason rolled his eyes, but he still had that blush on his cheeks, and he still wasn’t looking at Dick. “Bruce is worried about you, and so is Alfred. You don’t usually nest unless something’s bothering you.”

“How would you know,” Dick grumbled, aware of how petty he sounded but not caring enough to stop himself.

“Because they told me,” Jason answered flatly.

Dick felt guilty for making them worry, but he- he just wanted to nest in peace. To wallow in his misery and shame in peace. 

He was _ going _ to come out after today, because he was sure the last of the heat would wear off by nightfall, and while it was true he’d also been planning to leave for Blüdhaven first thing the next morning, it wasn’t like he was _ hurt _ or anything.

He was a grown ass adult and he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself.

“Look,” Jason said, sounding defeated. “If it’s about the- about what happened when I found you, I didn’t tell them.” 

His blush darkened further, and he reached up one hand behind his neck awkwardly. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable because of it,” he added in a quiet, resigned tone.

Dick frowned up at him, unable to believe his ears. Jason, make _ him _ uncomfortable? Dick almost wanted to laugh.

How ironic was it, that Jason Todd - sweet, loyal, innocent little Robin - thought that he was making Dick Grayson of all people, _ uncomfortable _ because Dick had tried to bone him while drugged out of his mind?

That Jason was feeling bad enough about it that he was _ apologizing_?

“Little wing,” Dick said, and then stopped because he wasn’t sure what he’d been about to say, really.

Jason finally, finally looked at him, meeting his eyes, and Dick smiled at the clear uncertainty in his teal blue irises.

“Come nest with me,” Dick said, shifting back until there was enough space on the bed for Jason to settle in.

Jason’s brows furrowed, visibly hesitating at the invitation. He glanced back at the closed door of Dick’s room, and Dick felt a lump in his throat at the thought of being rejected. But if Jason wanted to leave, he wasn’t going to stop him. How could he? Jason owed him nothing.

Thankfully, Jason didn’t leave. He shrugged off his jacket - folding it neatly over the back of the chair at Dick’s desk - and slowly, carefully, climbed onto the bed with Dick. He laid on his back, stiff and obviously unsure of what to do with his hands, and Dick sighed.

“C’mere, you idiot,” he said, reaching over to pull Jason closer by his shoulders.

Jason made a protesting sound at the insult, but didn’t fight him, allowing Dick to position him until they were facing each other, Dick’s naked legs tangled between Jason’s jean-clad ones. Jason’s blush returned tenfold at the proximity, intensifying further when Dick brushed Jason’s hair out of his face gently with the back of his hand.

“Put your arm around my waist,” Dick advised in a gentle tone, and Jason gave a full-body jerk, eyes widening. “I won’t _ bite_.”

Jason obeyed, but not for what felt like a long while. His hand was big and warm where it rested, first on Dick’s hip, and then moving slowly over until his fingers curled around to the small of Dick’s back.

“See?” Dick said, smiling. “Wasn’t that bad, was it?”

“Am I dead?”

“If you were, then you must be in hell. Can’t imagine how bad you’ve been to be stuck with just me for the rest of your eternal life.”

Jason frowned at him, his fingers digging into Dick’s skin as he said, “Being stuck with just you sounds like a dream.”

Dick smiled again, this time a little sadly. “When you’ve had nothing all your life, a little something must seem like everything,” he said. “Jason, you haven’t made me uncomfortable about what happened. I need you to understand that.”

Jason’s frown eased, and he looked a little ashamed now, eyes averting to fix on Dick’s chin instead. “You’re just saying that,” he said, quiet. Dejected. “I know- it’s fine if I did. And I’m sorry. I just- can you please just come out of your room after this?”

Dick moved his hand, reaching up to cup at Jason’s face, brushing his thumb over the firm curve of Jason’s cheekbone. “Little wing, you know me. Have I ever lied to you?”

Jason’s eyes fluttered closed at his touch, and the younger man shifted closer to Dick, seemingly subconsciously. “No,” he confessed under his breath.

“Then believe me when I say, you didn’t make me uncomfortable,” Dick reassured him. “I was- I’m the one that should be sorry. I shouldn’t have been such a reckless idiot and I feel awful for making a fool out of myself in that room. I thought you’d hate me for it.”

Jason’s eyes flew open, shock and disbelief swimming through them. “What? That doesn’t even make any sense.”

Dick smiled, patting his cheek in a soothing manner. “I know, I get it now, I’m sorry your big brother’s a big dummy,” he said in an exasperated tone. “I was sincerely hoping that Bruce’s terrible communications skills wouldn’t be passed on to you, but I guess it must be a Robin thing, huh?”

Jason still looked shocked, but he wasn’t as tensed as he had been before. “Why on earth would I hate you?” he asked, rhetorical. “I mean, _ yeah _you were being stupid. But then you got drugged, you weren’t in control of yourself. It’s not your fault Penguin’s a gross old pervert.”

Dick broke out into a smile at that, wholly agreeing with Jason’s opinion of the Penguin. “Thank you, little wing.”

Jason blushed again, ducking his head quickly and muttering, “Don’t need to thank me for it, jeez,” and Dick chuckled, pinching his cheek.

“But you look so cute when you’re flustered,” Dick teased.

Jason rolled his eyes, swatting Dick’s hand away. “Shut up, you’re such a _ dick_.”

Dick planted a quick peck on his nose, enjoying Jason’s indignant sputtering at the show of affection, before pulling the younger man closer to his chest, hugging him tightly. Jason was still half-heartedly protesting, but he settled down soon enough.

“Why would you think you were making me uncomfortable anyway?” Dick asked after a moment, curious now. Jason tensed in his arms, moving to pull away, but Dick held him tight. “Sorry, you don’t- please don’t leave, I won’t ask again if you don’t want to talk about it,” he said hastily.

Jason calmed down, but he was once more as stiff as when he’d first entered the nest. Dick sighed, kissing the top of his head and gently carding his fingers through the soft hair at the nape of the man’s neck.

They stayed like that for a long while, until Jason relaxed again and Dick’s eyelids eventually began to droop, sleep calling to him. And then-

“I’m an alpha.”

Jason’s words were a soft murmur of breath, barely audible even in the silence of the room, but Dick caught it, loud and clear.

His chest clenched painfully at the simplicity of it, at the implications of what such an innocuous statement brought with it. Suddenly, he understood why Jason had been more withdrawn, why he’d avoided being alone with Dick since Dick had come to visit almost a week ago. He understood now, what Bruce had meant, when he’d said, _ not everyone is as lucky as you_.

He understood why Jason thought he’d been making Dick uncomfortable.

“Oh, _ Jason_,” Dick said, hugging him tighter. “Jason, you’ll always be my little wing.”

It was nostalgia, thick and heavy around them, as Jason’s shoulders trembled in his arms, as the salty tang of his tears stung Dick’s own eyes and they both cried quietly together - one with relief at having shared a burden, the other with sympathy for the man that had to suffer it.


	3. Chapter 3

Dick is nursing a mug of coffee and a huge, ugly bruise on his left cheek when Bruce enters the kitchen at midnight.

He’d left patrol early after giving Cash a heads up on the new toxin in case any of it had circulated the streets before they’d discovered it. He hadn’t planned on leaving early, but Damian had told him about Dick and Jason’s argument, and Tim had insisted that he could handle Damian on his own for a few more hours.

Bruce hadn’t believed him one bit, but Dick’s heat _ was _ about to set in, as Tim had reminded him.

Dick had said he would ask Jason for help with it, but since he’s distinctly _ alone _ right now with a fresh bruise on his face, Bruce assumes that the request hadn’t been too welcome. 

“He hates me.”

Bruce makes a noncommittal sound at the declaration, running a hand across the back of Dick’s shoulders as he passes by him on the way to the coffee machine.

“No, really. He _ hates _ me, Bruce. I don’t think he loathes anyone more than me right now, not even you.”

Dick sounds miserable. Bruce knows Dick believes every word that he’s saying right now, because that’s how Dick gets when he gets closer to his cycles. Moody, temperamental. Typical omega traits, which can only be eased by a potential partner’s attentions.

Dick doesn’t usually come to the manor until he’s already past the peak of his heats, once the worst of his cramps have tided over. They both know Bruce is far from Dick’s most compatible mate and there’s no point in him searching for something that isn’t there. 

But as rare as these occasions are, Bruce knows his ward well enough to know how to deal with them when they occur, even if their bodies are inclined to disagree.

“What did you say to him?” Bruce waits until he’s poured a mug of coffee for himself before he asks, turning to face the younger man.

Dick makes a face, glaring down at his own mug. “I could’ve worded it better.” He rubs at his eyes and groans, shoulders hunching over. “He hates me.”

Bruce sips his coffee, then sighs before he lays his mug down on the counter. He makes his way over to Dick and grasps his shoulders, brushing his fingers intentionally over Dick’s scent gland. Dick keens softly at the contact, instinctively leaning back against Bruce, but Bruce holds him still.

“Name one person that’s capable of hating you, Dick,” Bruce says. “I would like to take notes. Perhaps teach a class on it for the League.”

Dick snorts helplessly. “Plenty of people don’t like me.” He tilts his head back, meets Bruce’s eyes. “Some don’t like me because of _ you_.”

Bruce touches his scent gland again, a little firmer, and Dick’s eyes roll up into the back of his head, his jaw going slack at the sensation.

“Do you think Jason doesn’t like you because of me?”

Dick’s lips snap shut, and he whimpers, falling forward towards the counter. He almost lands on his face, but Bruce is still holding him by his shoulders.

“I _ know _ it,” Dick answers in a sad whisper. “He wants _ you_, Bruce. He always has. Last night- after what Damian said, I’m sure he hates me for ‘stealing’ you away. Maybe I really _ should _ go back to Blüdhaven now. Before I make everything worse. ”

Bruce lets go of him, and Dick actually _ does _ fall flat onto the counter with a pained yelp. He straightens back up almost immediately, turning to glare at the older man, but Bruce is already levelling an unimpressed stare at him.

“We both know I can never be in a monogamous relationship,” he states flatly. “If you believe that Jason is upset that the two of us share heats together, what makes you think that he won’t still be upset once you’ve left and he discovers that I do the same with Clark? Or Diana, and Hal?”

Bruce sees the moment Dick falters at his own flawed, self-deprecating logic, but Bruce doesn’t let up. In the state that Dick is in, he needs far more diatribe than that. Bruce knows from experience.

“What Jason feels for me is too complex to work through in the course of one night. It took you and I over a decade to reach the understanding that we have with each other now. But you have a chance to start with Jason and you’re wasting it away with coffee and self-pity instead. Do you really want to leave for Blüdhaven wondering _ what if _ for months to come?”

Dick’s expression cracks almost instantly, and Bruce is ready when the younger man throws himself into Bruce’s arms, crying his eyes out. Bruce hugs him, cooing soothingly, and Dick’s fingers tightly clench the front of Bruce’s pajama top.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t- I just can’t-”

Bruce hushes him, breathes in the distress and the fear and the hurt that’s emanating from Dick in crashing waves. Underneath all that, he can smell Jason, and he knows that Jason is lingering in the foyer, just several feet away, hesitantly lingering at the door.

Bruce knows he’d been eavesdropping. He knows Jason can smell Dick’s pitiful fusion of emotions. Most of what Bruce had said had been things Dick had needed to hear; but Bruce also doesn’t do things by halves. Plenty of it had been for Jason’s benefit too.

Jason might still hate Bruce, even a little - which is justified; Bruce knows he has _ plenty _of things to make amends for with his second eldest, especially with the night they’ve just shared - but Dick’s never been subject to that same animosity. Jason has been cold and cruel with Dick purely because in Jason’s mind, Dick belongs to Bruce.

(It’s a ludicrous thought. Bruce owns no one. He is owned _ by _ no one.)

Bruce thinks that it’s about time Jason understands the errors of his assumptions.

Dick’s sobs have petered off quickly, and he looks young in Bruce’s arms, his face buried in Bruce’s chest. “I thought Jason might be like you,” Dick says, muffled. “I thought- there’s no possible way he would stay at the manor, so I thought if I offered to pay him to spend my heat with me, he’d at least consider it.”

“Jason hates prostitution.”

Dick snorts derisively, shaking his head without moving away from Bruce. “I _ know._ I wasn’t thinking, I just- I wanted him to stay. That’s all.”

“Did you ask him to?”

“He didn’t even want to stay for dinner.”

Bruce sighs. He pries Dick off of himself, and kisses Dick’s forehead chastely before looking into his shimmering blue eyes. He always looks younger after a bout of tears, and Bruce feels nostalgia pulling at his heart at the sight, especially with Jason’s scent in the air.

If Bruce closes his eyes, he thinks he might perfectly recall a night like this, almost a decade ago. A night when Dick had stopped growing but Jason was just starting. When they would bicker and argue and demand Bruce to choose sides, to choose his favourite. 

When they would smile secretly at each other when Bruce would refuse, because they’d both known they were his favourite, in each their own way.

A happier night before Bruce had lost his son and his whole world in a single fell swoop.

“Jason won’t stay if you force him to,” Bruce says, and Dick stiffens for a moment before relaxing despondently. “You have a few hours left. Go up to your room. Start nesting while you can.”

Dick looks like he wants to protest, but for all his typical omega habits, being assertive during his heats isn’t one of them. Dick is more obedient the closer it is to his cycle, and just as Bruce had expected, he turns around and starts towards the stairs without another word.

Bruce waits for a minute before he goes out into the foyer. Jason is nowhere in sight, but Bruce knows every shadowy corner of the property like the back of his hand. He knows Jason is in the rafters, watching. Apprehensive.

“I’ll let the punch slide because Dick should have known better,” Bruce says into the empty space, pointed and plain. “It’s still your choice to stay, Jason. Whatever you choose, you’re always welcome at the manor.”

Bruce attributes the fact that he can hear Jason’s sharp inhale only due to Jason’s healing ribs, and leaves it at that, retiring to his own room.

He gives them an hour, at the most. In the meantime, he has his own demons to confront before the nightmares will claim him.

He can’t say he regrets what he’s done with Jason - no, that would be insulting Jason’s feelings for him, as warped and misguided as they are - but he also knows it likely hasn’t helped where he stands with him.

Bruce has made many mistakes in his life, but it seems like he can never do the right thing when it comes to the man his son has become; and it’s a burden he is determined to carry alone.

\---

Dick lies on his side in his bed, his arms wrapped around himself and his neck craned so that his nose is pressed deep into the soft mounds of his pillow. Jason’s scent is strongest there; floral and addictive, with an undertone of muskiness that’s new to Dick.

Dick remembers Jason’s daffodils being lighter; sweeter and more innocent. _ Young_.

(Dick remembers a time when all that had occupied his thoughts had been things about Jason Todd.

Jason’s smiles, Jason’s laughter, Jason’s grim jokes, Jason’s addictive, floral scent.

Dick had never had a heat while Jason had been Robin - that one time with Penguin and heat-accelerants notwithstanding - and Dick had never quite allowed himself to seriously humour the idea either.

But he remembers _ wanting _ to, remembers wondering, in passing, what Jason would have been like. It had been random, fleeting moments, while Dick would pop a pill, or get a coffee; but they had never gone any further than the assured opinion that _ Jason would be nice_.

The Jason that Dick had known was a sweet, charming kid that hid his vulnerabilities under rough actions and even rougher words, because he hadn’t wanted to allow anyone to exploit his weaknesses. The Jason that Dick had mourned had been an alpha that had hated himself for being an alpha, that had feared _ being _ hated for it.

Dick knows _ that _Jason is dead. He knows the Jason in their lives now is a different man than the boy he’d once loved, in every sense of the word.

But he also knows that this Jason - however different he is - is still _ Jason_. The Jason that will always be Dick’s little wing, just like Dick had promised him so long ago. No matter how much harsher, more violent or more aggressive he’s become. Will ever become.

Often, Dick wonders what would have happened if he’d made different choices instead. 

What would have happened between them, two kids thrown into the same world in almost the same way, just with different ghosts from their pasts; what would have happened if they’d had more time to share their youth together.)

Neither of them have been young for a _ long _ time now, and Dick isn’t surprised that Jason’s youthful scent has been replaced with something so _ adult _ and overwhelming. Heady in a way that makes Dick’s insides clench with anticipation. It’s so different from the scent that Dick had been used to, but somehow it still _ fits _ the man.

Dick bites down on his tongue, curling into himself. 

The cramps will start soon, he knows from how warm everything feels, how hot his skin is growing. It’ll be hours before he’ll feel fine enough to even go to the toilet on his own, and a part of him snarls viciously with familiar resentment at being so out of control of his own body. And after what had happened last night-

Dick curls tighter, sneaks a hand down between his legs and gingerly cups at his balls. He’d discovered, about a year ago, that if he squeezes just right, and pushes them down hard enough, they’ll rub against his clit with just the right amount of pressure to- _ yes_. Make his vision swim, his cunt and his ass clench with anticipation, his back bowing for more.

Dick bites down on the soft skin of his other hand to keep down the desperate moans spilling from his lips, and rubs harder, pushing a little more forcefully as he pinches his sac at the same time. It’s not enough, it _ never _ is, but it feels so good anyway, teasing himself like this when he knows he can just reach a little further down and fuck himself on his fingers.

But what would be the point. He would still ache, because his body knows that fingers aren’t what he wants, what he _ needs_. Dick had shoved his whole hand inside himself once, years ago when he had been much younger and less capable of restraint, and it hadn’t done anything to fill the painful _ emptiness _ inside.

He needs a good, hard cock, or to bury his own in someone else’s warmth. He needs to _ breed_.

Dick’s cock throbs in tandem with the clenching in his cunt and ass, and Dick keens into his hand, letting go of his balls to grip his cock instead. He fucks into his hand almost violently, burning at the contact with his fingers and his palm, chasing his release without a thought for anything else.

He’s so caught up in jerking off that he doesn’t realize that there’s someone else in the room, not until there are hands grabbing onto his wrists, pulling them up and shoving Dick onto his back. Dick whimpers as he’s forced to let go of his cock, but the desperation quickly becomes anger as he’s pinned down in place by warm thighs straddling his hips.

Dick snarls, jerking his arms from the intruder’s hold, trying to break out of the strong fingers. It doesn’t work, and Dick bucks off of the bed instead, digging his feet against the mattress as he tries to get the intruder off of him. Dick vaguely hears a warning growl, and Dick growls right back as the fingers around his wrists tighten threateningly.

Before he knows it, there’s a mouth on his shoulder and teeth biting down on his scent gland, and Dick’s eyes widen as his whole body twitches, every inch of his muscles tensing tautly before going limp.

The intruder’s body is warm against his, and they’re so big that Dick’s practically buried under their girth. It’s a good sign, Dick’s hind brain supplies as it forces Dick to tilt his head to the side, to bare more of his throat to this compatible mate. 

A large body and strong hands are good qualities; especially for an omega with Dick’s tendencies. He’s not good at sitting still, at settling down. A bigger, stronger mate will keep him in place, make sure he doesn’t run away, doesn’t run from his family. 

A part of Dick vehemently protests; he doesn’t _ want _ to be tied down. He’s not ready to spend the rest of his entire life in one place, devoted to one person whom he may or may not even get along with outside of his heat cycles. 

(He doesn’t want to be tied down to anyone that’s not Jason.)

But a larger part of him revels at the feeling of being claimed, sends slick gushing out of his entrances in invitation and anticipation. Dick whines as the teeth in his skin gnaws deeper, draws blood like water from a spring before a rough tongue eagerly licks over the marks sharp canines have left behind. 

The broad, wet swipes are possessive and proprietary, and even though they make the broken skin there sting, they make pre-come dribble sloppily from Dick’s hard cock too, makes Dick’s clit twinge with desire.

Underneath the haze of lust and heat, Dick’s more rational brain slowly realizes that Bruce would never mark him. Bruce, whose body had been so damaged by his time with the League of Assassins that it’s not capable of taking marks, and so he’d sworn to never mark anyone himself.

Dick has spent enough heats with Bruce to know this is true, which means-

Panic makes his chest clench painfully, and Dick’s breaths choke in his throat as breathing suddenly becomes an arduous task. It takes monumental willpower to overcome the instinctive desire to bask in the marking of this potential mate, but it’s _ not Bruce _ like Dick had subconsciously thought.

It’s _ someone else_, a _ stranger_, possibly dangerous or with nefarious intent, and Dick struggles against the hands pinning his wrists against the bed, bucks his hips again to dislodge the intruder’s from above him. 

The intruder doesn’t ease up. If anything, their hold on Dick tightens painfully, and they roll their hips down until the hardness under their clothed groin rubs wonderfully against Dick’s cock.

“No,” Dick moans, shaking his head, bucking again - although he knows that this time, it’s for more contact than any actual desire to escape. “No, no, no…”

_ Where’s Bruce, why isn’t Bruce here, how did this intruder get in past Bruce_-

Dick pulls against the stranger’s hands, arching his back when the stranger isn’t even phased, and Dick nearly shrieks when a hot mouth latches onto his right nipple, the damp heat sending electric shocks of pleasure running down Dick’s spine. 

That same tongue that had stung the mark on Dick’s shoulder now nudges against the sensitive nub of Dick’s nipple, lapping at it in much the same possessive manner as before. Dick’s toes curl at the sensation, and then he feels teeth grazing before the tongue returns, and all he can think of is that his other nipple feels utterly neglected in comparison.

One of the hands pinning his wrists lets go suddenly, but before Dick can even consider throwing a punch, it travels down Dick’s chest to circle calloused fingers around Dick’s left nipple. Dick groans when they stop circling and pinch instead, gripping the nub unforgivingly tight. 

It feels _ good _ , the pain of the squeeze there against the hot licks on his right nipple, and then the fingers _ pull _ and Dick arches up with it, moaning between breathy pants. His freed hand moves of its own accord, gripping at the soft, short hair of the intruder’s head where it’s pushed down against Dick’s chest. Dick should be pulling them off, stopping them and escaping, but he finds himself pushing the head closer; encouraging. 

The intruder pinches his nipple tighter, biting on his other nipple at the same time, before they ease up, rolling the nub almost soothingly as Dick sinks back down onto the bed. With a long, satisfied lick, the intruder pulls off of Dick’s right nipple, and lets go of his other. 

They release Dick’s other wrist too, and Dick feels large hands wrapping around his waist as the intruder kisses down his chest and his abs, until they finally stop at his hipbone, where they just seem to breathe against Dick’s skin there.

“Dickie.”

Even in his arousal, even through the heat-lust, Dick recognizes that voice.

Dick’s fingers tighten in the intruder’s hair for a moment before he lets go, and he pushes himself up onto his elbows to look down at Jason more clearly.

“Little wing,” Dick breathes out, and he closes his eyes against the longing, the relief, the confusion; his chest hurts, but his nether regions hurt more. It’s a struggle to speak, but Dick manages. He always manages for Jason. “You said. This isn’t what you- wanted.”

Jason’s fingers fan out at Dick’s sides, and Dick flinches at how good they feel. “I changed my mind,” he hears Jason say. His voice sounds lower than usual, rough like he hasn’t used it in a while.

It’s a struggle to breathe, too. “If you- you can’t change- your mind after this.” Dick opens his eyes again, stares straight into Jason’s. 

Jason’s blues are dark and hazy, but intense in a way that makes him look almost _ dangerous_. 

To Dick, they’re _ perfect_. “I don’t- I can’t share. Not _ you_. Anything but _ you_.”

Jason digs his fingernails into Dick’s skin, and Dick’s breath hitches, his eyes losing focus. “Me neither.”

Dick sobs when Jason swallows down Dick’s whole cock in his mouth, and his arms can’t support him anymore. He falls back down onto the bed, and he reaches down to touch Jason’s hair again, carding his fingers through the soft strands as he moans and struggles not to move his hips, to choke Jason on his cock and feel Jason’s throat convulse around him.

Jason’s better at this than Dick’s willing to admit, and Dick hates that Jason knows to finger Dick’s cunt as he hollows out his cheeks, knows to drag his tongue under the sensitive head when he bobs up, knows to squeeze Dick’s balls at the same time that Dick’s cock bumps against the back of Jason’s throat. 

Dick hates that Jason knows how to drive Dick right to the edge of release with a simple _ blowjob _ , because Dick wants to **kill all the people that had taught him how to do this**.

Dick wants to go out and **hunt them down**, **watch the life slowly bleed out of their eyes as he chokes them with their own guts**. He knows he can do it too. He’s _ good _ at it, _ good _ at being sneaky and strong and lethal, and if it weren’t for Batman, Dick would’ve made a perfect assassin. Slade’s always told him so.

After all, Dick can _ perfectly _ understand why the Joker talks about murdering people so _ giddily_. Nothing works better to brighten a mood than a splash of bright, vibrant _ red_, especially when it comes from the sliced up torso of a **killer** and a fucking **rapist** psycho-

And then Dick snaps out of his thoughts, brought back to Jason’s tongue licking tenderly down the underside of Dick’s balls, and Dick feels _ sick_.

“Jason,” he gasps, pulling Jason off of him by his hair.

Jason goes without a fight, too surprised to react much at all, and Dick scrambles up the bed and throws himself over the side, heaving out his dinner.

“Dick?”

The bile burns as it makes its way out of his mouth, and Dick can’t do anything but cough and wheeze as his throat convulses, as tears spring to his eyes and his face heats up with more than just arousal.

Arousal. Dick feels sicker to realize that he’s still _ rock hard_, and he knows it’s not just because of his heat. No, he’s hard because the idea of killing someone with his bare hands had made his blood run hotter in his veins, even though he _ knows _ that it’s wrong. _ Something _ is wrong with him, and Dick sobs as his throat finally relaxes and he can breathe better.

Jason’s smoothing a hand down Dick’s back, cooing gentle reassurances that Dick can’t quite make out. A cramp travels through Dick’s gut, dulled by the pain of his vomiting bout, and Dick wipes at his mouth with a corner of the bedsheets.

He wishes he hadn’t foregone building his nest now. He’d been too busy wallowing in his misery at not having Jason, and now he _ has _ Jason, but he needs- he needs more security, needs to be surrounded by the scent of his family. He needs _ comfort_.

Jason bundles Dick up onto his lap, peppering Dick’s face with kisses as he wraps his arms around Dick’s waist and holds him tight.

“I didn’t think I was that bad,” he murmurs into the skin at Dick’s jaw before he nips at it.

Dick pulls Jason close, cradling the other man’s head against his chest, and closes his eyes, trying to even out his own breathing.

“You’re perfect, little wing.” _ I’m just fucked up_. “My perfect mate.”

Dick sees the door to his room push open from above Jason’s head, and tenses up, arms tightening around Jason protectively.

It’s Bruce.

His expression is impassive as he opens the door wide enough to take in the sight of Dick and Jason wrapped up in each other, before his eyes land on the mess that Dick had made at the side of the bed. His face doesn’t change, but Dick sees his fingers twitch around the doorknob.

Dick growls at him, eyes narrowing. He wants to turn them around so that Bruce won’t look back at Jason a second time, but Jason’s not loosening his grip on him, even as Dick pulls away.

“It’s just Bruce, pretty bird,” he hears Jason say, feels his hot breaths against Dick’s shoulder. “He won’t do anything.”

Dick knows that. He _ knows_, but his body remains tensed, his muscles coiled and ready to attack if Bruce so much as moves like he’s going to take Jason away. **He’ll ** ** _kill_ ** ** him if he tries**.

“He didn’t nest,” Bruce says, and he’s looking over at Dick, even though he’s speaking to Jason. “Your room is closer. Alfred’s gathered some things that he’s attached to.”

Dick growls again, louder and more threatening. The nerve of the man to speak to his mate like that, like as if Dick’s not even in the same room, like he can’t hear him perfectly fine. It makes anger boil under Dick’s skin, and Dick claws at Jason’s arms, attempting to break free so that he can launch himself at the older man-

“Get the fuck out of here, Bruce.”

Dick cries out angrily when Jason hauls Dick over his shoulder and carries him like that off the bed. How _ dare he_, his instincts scream, the fucking _ nerve _ of him! Dick bucks and scratches at Jason’s back, growling and snarling with indignation. He hears Jason huff, and then Dick’s shocked to silence when fingers shove into his cunt so forcefully that Dick’s hips jerk at the action.

They’re thick and hot, and Dick’s entrance clamps down on them greedily, throbbing for more. Dick forgets what he’d been angry about, forgets being angry at all, and moans, his hands scrabbling at Jason’s back for purchase as he attempts to push his hips back so that the fingers can sink deeper inside him.

“_Fuck_,” Jason swears, his fingers crooking and catching at Dick’s inner walls.

Dick moans again at the sensation; it feels so _ good _ , but it’s still not enough. They’re not _ deep _ enough, not big enough.

“Jason, Jason, please, _ please_,” he begs mindlessly. “Please, fuck me, come on-”

Dick’s words peter off into unintelligible moans as Jason obliges, dragging his fingers out until only the tips are hooked right at the folds of Dick’s entrance, before he drives them back in. He does it over and over at a punishing pace, finger-fucking Dick until his whole hand is probably soaked in Dick’s slick, and Dick’s making desperate, barely human sounds because it feels _ so fucking good_.

And then Jason withdraws his fingers completely and Dick whines at the loss, shaking his head as he begs, “_Nonono_, please, don’t pull out, don’t pull out-”

Dick stops when he’s thrown onto his back on a bed, and he’s overwhelmed by the scent of burning flowers. Daffodils on fire, his mind supplies, and he moans, turning over to bury his nose into the sheets, humping his aching cock against the mattress.

“Oh no you don’t, goldie.”

Dick keens when a hand wraps around one of his ankles and forces him onto his back. Jason’s standing at the foot of the bed, smirking down at Dick with a cruel glint in his eye. Dick growls and tugs his leg back, but Jason refuses to let him go. He pushes Dick’s leg up instead, climbing onto the bed as he stretches it to the limit, until Dick’s knee is right by his own head.

The burn in his muscles feels good, especially with how the position stretches Dick’s entrances too, and Dick lifts his other leg to wrap it around Jason’s waist, pulling Jason down against him. Dick runs his hands along the hard planes of Jason’s chest and grips at the collar of the t-shirt he’s still wearing.

“Off,” he demands. He doesn’t wait for Jason to agree, just digs his fingernails into the material and pulls, tearing it right down the middle.

Jason laughs, smacking Dick’s ass under him, and Dick yelps at the sting. 

“I loved that shirt,” Jason says before he bends down to capture Dick’s lips in a kiss.

Dick drowns in his taste, familiar and foreign at the same time. He tastes like the ocean and _ Bruce_; like raindrops falling from a leaf, mixed with a bitterness reminiscent of burnt chocolate. Distantly, Dick remembers that Jason had spent a night like this, with Bruce.

He’d kissed Bruce, _ fucked _Bruce. Bruce has had him before Dick had, and Dick burns angrily at the thought.

The anger drives him to surge up against Jason, to grab him by the lapels of his jacket and roll them over, until Jason’s half-lying on a mound of pillows and clothes lining the edge of the bed, with Dick straddling his thighs. 

Jason stares up at him with wide, surprised eyes, and Dick leans down, kisses him deep but quick before he pulls back and tears off the rest of Jason’s destroyed t-shirt, along with his jacket.

Dick drags his hands down the sharp planes of Jason’s torso, lingering on scars he doesn’t recognize, burning them into his memory to ask Jason about each of them later. For now, he has a goal to achieve; Jason’s pants.

Dick undoes Jason’s belt and button in record time, and Jason lifts his hips helpfully as Dick drags the loose cotton down Jason’s hips. He’s not wearing underwear, and Dick’s cock twitches at this discovery.

He’s also _ large _ and _ leaking_. Dick doesn’t know how Jason had been able to carry Dick when he’s been _ this _hard, his balls so tight and full that they look bruised. Dick takes a gentle hold of Jason’s straining erection, and looks up into Jason’s eyes.

He’s watching Dick almost warily, silent and tense with anticipation. Dick knees Jason’s thighs apart before shimmying further down the bed, and bends down until he’s face to face with Jason’s cock, although his eyes are still on Jason’s.

He watches Jason’s face as he licks a long line up the side of Jason’s cock, running his tongue on a vein there before licking over the head, where Dick presses against the slit experimentally. Jason twitches at the sensation, but his expression doesn’t change.

Dick fondles Jason’s balls as he pulls Jason’s cock into his mouth, and _ finally_, he sees Jason’s lips part as he inhales sharply. Dick swallows down as much of him as he can fit, but Jason’s size means Dick can only get about mostly half of it in before he can feel it nudging against the back of his throat. 

Dick leaves it in like that for a moment, relishing the taste of it, the heaviness of Jason’s arousal on his tongue, and then he starts sucking him off earnestly. Jason’s not as vocal as him, Dick discovers, but his face is a snapshot of emotions. 

His brows furrow like he’s thinking too hard, his lips seem to never close as he lets out breathy little panting sounds, and his _ eyes_. 

God, Dick wishes he could keep Jason’s eyes like this forever; they’re so wide and _ bright_, shining with desire. They look like they _ used to_, beautiful without the ever present shadow of resentment and animosity in them since he’d come back from the dead.

Dick’s throat closes up at the nostalgia, and he chokes on Jason’s cock without meaning to. Jason groans at the feeling, and Dick pulls off of him quickly before he can start heaving again. Wincing, he gives Jason an apologetic tug before he slots his hands under Jason’s knees and lifts them up to rest them on his shoulders.

Jason tenses again, eyes narrowing down at Dick. “What are you doing?”

Dick grins at him in response, purring in his sore throat as he bends down, and plants a kiss on Jason’s balls. Jason jerks a little at the sensation, and Dick’s grin widens.

He fans his fingers out over the curves of Jason’s cheeks, and Jason makes a quiet sound of shock as Dick spreads him apart and licks over the puckered ring of muscles there.

“_Dick_,” he hears Jason hiss, and it sounds like both a warning and a plea for more.

Dick knows that feeling too well. He briefly entertains the idea of teasing Jason like Jason had done to him earlier, but then decides against it. He’s lucid _ now_, but Dick’s not sure how long it’ll last before he goes back to mindlessly begging to be fucked.

(This is the first time Dick’s spending an initial heat with someone. The first time he’s ever even _ wanted _ to be so vulnerable with someone. He hadn’t known it would be like this.

He thinks he could get used to it being like this.)

He delves his tongue into Jason’s entrance without further ceremony, and he almost chokes again because Jason’s thick thighs squeeze tightly around his head, and Jason’s digging the balls of his feet down against the middle of Dick’s back. It’s not painful, not really, and Dick feels his cock twitch excitedly when he realizes that he can’t quite move in this position, not unless Jason _ lets _him.

The realization - the intense feeling of being trapped in place - sends a shiver running down Dick’s spine, and he focuses on that, on feeling good and making _ Jason _feel good. He starts loosening Jason up as much as he can, pushing in deep, relishing in Jason’s taste and the musk that’s stronger down there, around his hole and under his balls.

Dick loves it, loves how Jason clenches down around him, especially when Jason starts _ talking_.

“Fuck, Dickie, _ god_, you’re so good at this, you fucking slut-”

Dick hums in agreement, in pleasure, delighted that Jason thinks so, and then he feels Jason grabbing a fistful of his hair and pushing him down at the same time Jason rolls his hips forward, and Dick can’t _ breathe_, but Jason shudders bodily against him and lets out a long, _ guttural _ moan, and Dick doesn’t _ need _ to breathe. He pushes his tongue in as deep as he can go, and sucks on Jason’s pucker until it’s swollen and dripping with his saliva.

“Shitshit, _ Dick_, so good, so fucking _ good_-”

Dick pulls out and licks over Jason’s hole, marvelling at its puffiness before he looks up at Jason from under his lashes.

“Let me fuck you, Jay,” he says, kissing at Jason’s cock. It’s redder now, looking close to exploding, and Dick wants it inside him so bad.

But Jason looks strung out, his face and chest flushed bright and rosy, and the muscles in his stomach ripple enticingly with every shaky breath he takes. He looks so _ fuckable _ that Dick can’t wait for an answer.

He surges forward, and Jason’s hand in Dick’s hair drops away, along with his legs from over Dick’s shoulders. Dick catches Jason’s lips in a kiss as he grabs at Jason’s hips and rolls his own against them, greedily devouring the moan that reverberates from Jason’s mouth as their cocks grind together.

Dick reaches down and fingers at his own leaking entrance, coating his fingers in his slick, and uses it to wet his cock. Even with his tongue and his slick, Dick knows Jason needs more lube if he doesn’t want to be sore later. But it’s a distant thought that barely registers, not like the overwhelming need to bury himself inside Jason’s tight heat.

Dick lines himself up and thrusts in before Jason can realize that, and Jason arches up, breaking their kiss with a cry. His hands move to grab Dick’s shoulders, gripping tight, and Dick leans closer, mouthing at Jason’s scent gland soothingly as he struggles to not move, to give Jason time to adjust.

_ Jason’s an alpha, he’s not made for this_, Dick tells himself. _ Patience_.

“I’ve got you, little wing,” he murmurs into sweat-damp skin, inhaling Jason’s musky, salt-sweet scent. “I’ve got you, I won’t let you go. Never let you go again.”

Jason makes a choked, breathless sound of pain, or Dick _ thinks _ its pain. It doesn’t sound too good, and when he looks up, Jason’s eyes are squeezed shut. There are tears streaming down his cheeks, and Dick coos at him, kissing the salty trails and licking them dry.

Jason makes that same sound again as Dick laps at his cheeks, his voice strained and his eyes still closed as he bites out, “_Move_, asshole.”

Dick kisses his eyelids, grinning at him, and pulls his hips back slowly. Jason’s hands tighten on his shoulders when Dick pushes back into him at an equally slow pace, and then he’s eyes fly open and he glares at Dick.

Dick’s breath is knocked out of him when Jason flips them over with a strength that makes Dick twitch inside him, and then he’s staring up at Jason seated snugly on his cock.

Jason’s beautiful, his cock standing tall and proud between his thighs, his skin glistening with sweat and slick, and Dick’s breathless for a whole other reason. He can’t look away from Jason’s taut muscles, from the narrow dip of his waist, and then Jason’s leaning down towards Dick and caging Dick in between his arms.

“I’m going to fuck you,” Jason pants down at him.

Dick’s breath stutters when Jason pulls off of him before slamming down hard, the whole bed rocking with the force of his movements. He doesn’t stop there either, not like Dick had. He’s doing it again, and again, groaning as he twists his hips and fucks himself on Dick’s cock, gripping Dick so tight that Dick can’t breathe through the pleasure.

“I’m going to fuck you and fill you up ‘til you’re bursting with my come-” 

Jason’s words are dark and husky in Dick’s ears, enunciated in places with every thrust of Jason’s hips. Dick can’t quite hear them, not when he himself is grunting loudly each time Jason slams down on him, but the cadence of Jason’s tone is enough to bring him even closer to the edge.

“Then I’ll plug you up with my knot, stuff it in you so deep that you’ll taste me on your tongue, _ ngh_-”

Dick whimpers when Jason stops moving, and he feels something drip onto his navel. He realizes dazedly that Jason had come. He’d _ come_, but Dick’s still thick and hard inside him, and Jason’s gone completely still.

With a growl, Dick grabs Jason’s flagging cock and pumps it, and Jason keens at the feeling. He arches his back, clenching tighter around Dick, and Dick milks him harder, tugging and twisting mercilessly.

He keeps at it until there’s barely anything left for Jason to leak out, and Dick flips them over again. Jason makes a tired, protesting sound, but Dick snarls down at him; Jason had come without him, he has no right to complain. 

Jason snarls back, half-hearted, practically obligatory. He spreads his legs wider for Dick, reaches up to cup Dick’s face in his hands and stares, his snarl softening. 

“You’re beautiful, Dick.” 

Jason looks like he hadn’t meant to say that, because he closes his eyes and grimaces, his hands retracting like he’d been stung.

Dick grabs his wrists before Jason can get far, and leans down, resting his forehead against Jason’s. “Not as beautiful as you, little wing.”

Dick kisses Jason’s nose, his eyes, the glaring- the ** _mark _ ** **on his cheek**, and then his pursed lips. “Bear with me, Jay,” Dick breathes, and pulls out before thrusting back in. 

Jason’s breath hitches at the feeling. It probably doesn’t feel as good as it had before, now that he’s no longer hard, but Jason lets a breath out through his mouth and leans up to kiss Dick briefly. 

“Make it quick,” he says, opening his eyes, and Dick stares into them, falls too damn fast, and thinks, _ that won’t be hard_.


	4. Chapter 4

**Back Then**

Time passed.

Jason seemed to find himself again after sharing his gender with Dick, and the manor once more felt like home whenever Dick visited.

He could do with less cursing and annoying pestering from Jason, but whenever Jason glared at him, or stole Alfred’s cookies from him, or argued with him about the pros and cons of projectile weapons versus melee weapons in a flat terrain fight, Dick would feel a burst of warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with heats.

But terrible things were brewing in Blüdhaven.

Dick had to spend more time there, thwart ridiculous numbers of crimes - most of which, to his displeasure, involved illegal arms smuggling and trading - and keep track of more and more relationships besides the ones that he’d forged in Gotham. Dick was spreading himself thin, and Bruce knew it.

Bruce had asked him to take a break, to ask for help if - when - he needed it, but Dick hated that. It pissed him off, that his mentor was still trying to call the shots in the life that Dick had built without him, however subtly, and it just made Dick want to visit the manor even less.

It was horrible, if he were honest. He missed Jason most days, but he also dreaded the inevitable arguments that would usually accompany his and Bruce’s reunions recently.

And then Blockbuster threatened to hurt Jason, to hurt _ Bruce _ and Barbara and Alfred, and-

Dick didn’t know what to do. He’d just decided to stay away, to deal with Blüdhaven as much as he could, keep all of his problems isolated there, and far, far away from Gotham.

Tarantula- no, Catalina had been a mistake, and even more of a reason why Dick didn’t want to see Bruce. To let Bruce see _ him_.

He didn’t know how to face him, not after what had happened.

Because Bruce had told him so, hadn’t he? He’d warned Dick, told him that Catalina was a bad call, but what had Dick done? He’d vouched for her, insisted he could make her- believed that he could shape her into what Jason was to Bruce.

He’d thought he could save her, but in the end, he was the one that had needed saving, wasn’t he?

He’d paid dearly for his mistake.

Her scent was everywhere, that acrid, coppery tang of death and blood. Underneath that, there was a whiff of jasmine, something so jarringly innocent in contrast to all the horror on the surface, but Dick had read before that jasmines were a symbol of death in some Asian cultures. It was poetic, almost; fitting in a tragically Shakespearean way.

* * *

He should’ve known there was nothing good left in her.

He wanted to push her away but his arms felt weak. He was stronger than her, it was a fact. Dick was an omega and she was just a beta. He could have overpowered her on any day, in any given situation.

But he hadn’t.

She’d touched him, held him, right there in the wet and dirty street, meters away from the dead body she was responsible for, and the scent of death that tainted the air from the fresh corpse wasn’t discernible from the one that came naturally from her.

Dick could feel her hands everywhere, staining his skin and his suit with that stench, and even when she held his hands to unlock what little boundaries left that kept him safe from her hungry eyes and touch, Dick didn’t move, didn’t do anything but arch into her, spread open for her, inviting her in even despite the ‘_no_’s spilling from his lips and the denial pleading in his eyes.

She entered with a cry of ecstasy and it wasn’t Dick’s first time, not by a long shot, but it might as well have been with how hard he gripped around her, how pieces of him tore away with every thrust of her hips, in and out, in and out, in and out, like a guillotine swinging back and forth and rending the flesh between his neck and his shoulders.

She drew his pleasure from his body too; sweet, _ loving _Catalina, hitting that spot inside him that could melt Dick’s senses right out of his ears and send stars soaring across his vision, her hands - calloused and sure, ever strong - tugging him until he was spilling all over himself.

She’d always liked that he was flexible, soft and pliable even despite his hard muscles, because that made it easy for her to shape him into an image of her liking. She bent him completely in half, his ankles thrown over his own ears, and it wasn’t beyond his limits, but it wasn’t something he’d wanted.

It was humiliating but she simply laughed, full of satisfied mirth, and his last request, the final vestiges of hope that clung to his broken words-

_ Not inside please, Catalina_, he’d choked out between gasps of air, and she laughed again, nuzzling into his scent gland, tainting him impossibly further. _ Catalina_.

The chances of conception outside of heats were one out of a hundred million, but it was still one too many chances. He couldn’t risk it, he could never subject the life that he led to an innocent child, least of all his own. He could never have a child by someone that reeked of such evil.

_Our brood_, Catalina had simply purred in response, digging into him one final time, reaching so far inside him that Dick wondered if he would ever be able to get her out of him completely. _Our beautiful children, Nightwing. They’ll be perfect, just like you, mi querido._

* * *

Dick had taken pregnancy tests every week since that day, almost obsessively.

Every test came out negative, but sticks from a pharmacy could be wrong, could pick up the right amount of hCGs months too late, and Dick couldn’t- he couldn’t _ risk _ it.

He didn’t experience any of the symptoms of pregnancy either, but everyone went through it differently. He couldn’t know for sure, he _ had _to know for sure.

So he kept doing it. Every week, without fail, he would piss in a cup and dip the things in and hold his breath as he counted the seconds, waiting for the lines to appear.

Only one ever did, to his relief.

Afterwards, when a month had passed, and his cycle finally came, Dick _ cried _ through the first day. It was like the world wasn’t so small anymore, like the sky had finally cleared to let sunlight shine through, and the same thought kept running happily through his mind.

_ I’m not pregnant_.

He wasn’t pregnant.

He was so glad, he didn’t even register the cramps, didn’t even resent the whelming want and lust that wrecked his body for the rest of the week. He didn’t even take his pills, didn’t want to miss a single moment of his cycle as a way to remember that he _ wasn’t_._ Fucking Pregnant_.

It was gratifying.

Until the fifth day rolled round, and Dick was sitting in his kitchen, eating cereal out of the box at 4am in the morning - dressed in nothing but a blanket wrapped around his hips - and he got a call from Alfred.

\---

Jason’s funeral was a quiet, sombre affair.

There were just about five attendees including Dick, and Dick hated it.

He hated the dull gravestone that Bruce had picked out for Jason, hated the depressing rain that hadn’t had the decency to wait until Jason’s mahogany coffin - empty, just like Dick’s heart, because Batman hadn’t even been able to track down his _ body _ \- had been lowered into the ground before it had started to pour.

Dick hated that he couldn’t even cry because he didn’t- he couldn’t feel anything besides the hate. Harsh and intense, pulsing in his chest, threatening to force a scream up his throat and past his frozen lips.

It wasn’t fair.

Jason was dead, and it wasn’t fair.

Dick hadn’t spoken to him in _ months_, could barely remember what Jason’s voice had sounded like because he’d been a coward and an idiot, staying away from him- and for what? Dick had done that to protect him, but Jason _ was dead _ anyway.

_ It wasn’t fucking fair_.

“Dick.”

He barely noticed when the rain stopped pelting down on his face, an umbrella shielding him, held in the hand of the man that Dick had trusted would keep Jason alive.

“You let him die.”

It was a hoarse, harsh growl, full of contempt, and Dick realized only distantly that it was his own voice that had said that. They were his words, and when his eyes focused and he looked into Bruce’s, it dawned on him that he was right.

“You bastard, how could you let him die?” A stricken look contorted Bruce’s wet, tired face, and a part of Dick felt immediately guilty for putting that expression there, but a larger part was vindicated. It wanted _ more_. “You were supposed to _ protect _ him. He was just a _ kid_, Bruce! Where the fuck were you?!”

“Dick, that’s enough” someone said behind him, a hand resting on his shoulder, and Dick shrugged it off violently, glaring at Bruce.

Bruce’s eyes slid shut against Dick’s accusations. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, almost inaudible over the sound of the rain pounding down around them. “I was too late.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Master Bruce.” Alfred appeared next to him, and his eyes were stern when he looked at Dick. “Show some respect, Master Richard,” he chided. “You were raised better than this.”

Dick sneered in response. “He doesn’t _ deserve _any respect.”

“I _ meant _ for Master Jason,” Alfred said flatly. “I think it would be best if you were to wait in the car for the remainder of the ceremony.”

Dick was cowed by Alfred’s words, but his anger spiked again at being told what to do. Before he could argue, hands took a firm hold of his arm, and Dick was pulled away, back into the rain and in the other direction.

“You’re not the only one that lost a loved one today,” Barbara said as she ushered him along. “I thought you were better than this.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Dick snapped back.

She shot him a short glare that dissipated as soon as she met his eyes. “It wasn’t Bruce’s fault,” she said quietly. “We all knew the risks when we agreed to help Batman. You can’t seriously blame him.”

Deep down, Dick knew she was right. Barbara was always right, but it didn’t make what was _ happening _ right. What had _ already _ happened. It didn’t _ justify _ Jason’s _ death_.

“He should have saved him,” Dick said, as Barbara pulled the door of the car open and pushed him inside, sliding in after him. “He should’ve been there, Babs.”

“He tried everything he could,” Barbara replied, wrapping her arms around Dick’s shoulders, pulling him close despite how wet they both were. “He never slept and he barely took off the cowl.”

Dick buried his face into her collar, closing his eyes, breathing in her scent. Her mint leaves and ginger spice grounded him, but it wasn’t enough. Dick wanted seasalt and daffodils, wanted burning warmth and cocky taunts. He wanted _ Jason_.

“I loved him, Babs,” Dick choked out, and suddenly his throat felt like it would close off completely, and he couldn’t _ breathe_. He gasped against her, tears he hadn’t known had been gathering spilling over and down his cheeks, and Barbara rubbed her hands up and down his back, cooing softly into his dripping hair.

“You don’t need to stop,” she said gently. “We all loved him too. Bruce especially. He was a son to him and so are you. So please, Dick. Don’t do anything you’ll regret later.”

Dick sobbed, pressing against her as much as he could. “It’s not fair…”

“I know, Dick. I know.”

\---

Barbara persuaded him to stay at the manor, even though Dick had planned to get a hotel in the city.

She left when Commissioner Gordon called looking for her, which was soon after the both of them had changed into dry clothes.

(He’d stayed until the last of the dirt had been shoveled into Jason’s grave, out of respect for his daughter’s relationship to the poor boy. But Barbara also knew he’d stayed for Bruce Wayne; a twisted form of solidarity for the child he’d once comforted, who had experienced far too much loss at Gotham’s evil than any one person deserved to.

Barbara knew her father was imagining _ her _ in that hole, and no one understood Bruce’s pain quite like Gordon did.)

With a kiss on the head and a promise to call soon, Barbara left Dick to mourn alone in his room.

But Dick didn’t stay there long. Minutes after she’d left, he’d wandered out into the hall, following the faint whiff of Jason’s fading scent into the younger man’s room, just a few doors down.

It was pristine, just as Jason always left it. Unlike Dick, Jason had always been incredibly organized. He liked keeping his things neat and tidy, everything in its place like a movie set instead of an angry teenager’s sanctuary.

Dick had thought it was because Alfred had managed to nag his way with him - god knew it had never worked with Dick - but Jason had once confessed to him in confidence that it was because he’d never had any stability in his young life. His parents were- well, they both knew how his parents had been, and Jason craved order because of it.

It gave him peace of mind, cleaning up and making sure that everything was where they should be. No broken furniture, no missing pieces; the wholesome picture of domestic perfection.

The admission had broken Dick’s heart, but he’d also been glad that Jason no longer had to go through that hell.

Now he never had to go through anything ever again.

Dick’s eyes felt sore and tight as he collapsed onto Jason’s bed, curling up into a fetal position in the centre of it. It still held Jason’s scent strongly, and Dick hoped Alfred would never wash the sheets, if only he could keep this for as long as was possible.

If he thought hard enough, he could still hear Jason’s amused chuckle whenever Dick would make a stupid mistake - like setting off the fire alarm trying to boil water - or his angry grunt whenever he realized that Dick was holding back against him as they sparred. 

Memories of Jason’s bright smiles, his glaring teal eyes, his lightning-fast quips, flitted through Dick’s mind, and Dick found himself sobbing into his knees, fresh tears bursting without warning.

The pain was like a physical wound, but worse because there was nothing to tend to; no bleeding to plug up, no broken bones to set. It hurt so bad, knowing that Jason was _ gone _ and there was absolutely _ nothing _ Dick could do about it.

Dick didn’t know how long he wept before he’d fallen asleep, utterly exhausted, but it was dark out when his eyes fluttered open.

He’d been awoken by the strong scent of sorrow and misery, the potent mixture tasting bitter on his tongue, and it took a while for his drowsy mind to realize that it wasn’t coming from himself. Rubbing at his sore eyes, Dick sat up slowly, and turned over to see Bruce standing in the darkness of the doorway.

His face was hidden in the shadows, because Dick hadn’t turned the lights on when he’d come in, but Dick could imagine the expression that must be on it.

It was probably a mirror image of his own.

Exhausted, Dick remembered the harsh words he’d thrown at Bruce earlier, and regretted them now. He’d been angry, and maybe he had every right to be. Maybe there _ had _ been some truth in what he’d said. 

But it wasn’t fair to Bruce, was it? Barbara _ was _ right; Bruce might’ve introduced this double-edged life to them, but _ they _ were the ones that had chosen to stay and fight with him.

And Dick knew Bruce. He knew he was probably beating himself black and blue about Jason’s death, blaming himself for every single thing that had led up to it. Dick hadn’t needed to say any of the things he’d said at the funeral, because Bruce was probably already telling them to himself, and much more.

“I’m sorry,” Dick said, his voice raspy and hoarse. “It wasn’t your fault Bruce, I’m sorry I said that.”

Bruce didn’t show any indication that he’d heard him, but the bitter scent in the air sharpened with pain. Dick winced at the intensity of it.

“You were right,” Bruce said. He sounded muted. Resigned. “It _ was _my fault. I thought he was ready.”

Dick climbed off the bed and moved towards him, pulling the older man into his arms. Bruce was stiff and cold as Dick embraced him, but he didn’t pull away, didn’t struggle as Dick guided him back to the bed and sat him down.

Dick took one of Bruce’s hands and laid it on his scent gland, taking the other and wrapping it around his waist. 

“Listen to me, Bruce,” he said softly. Even in the dark, Dick could see Bruce’s blue eyes were clouded over, dulled by pain and loss. “I’m still here, so _ listen _to me. Jason loved you and we loved him. He wouldn’t blame you for this and neither should you.”

Bruce shook his head, moving to pull away, but Dick held him firmly in place, pressing closer and tucking his head under Bruce’s chin, his lips inches away from Bruce’s scent gland. His mentor’s earthy scent was so muddled by his grief that Dick could barely detect it.

“Stay,” he said. “Stay and tell me what happened.”

Dick heard Bruce’s breath hitching, just slightly, and his hand tightened on Dick’s scent gland, seeking comfort instinctively. “It was Joker,” Bruce said.

Dick’s eyes slid shut, and just like that, he _ understood_. The anger from before came back, almost choking him with its renewed intensity, but he forced himself to calm down and let go of Bruce’s arms to wrap his own around Bruce’s neck, pressing in closer.

“Jason was investigating a case on his own when I lost contact with him,” Bruce continued. “I didn’t realize- I should have known something was wrong, but Jason used to do that whenever he was angry at me. I thought I’d done something to annoy him again.”

Dick cooed when Bruce’s voice wavered, his words tumbling together into a near-incoherent mess of sound. 

“Breathe,” Dick said, running his fingers down the back of Bruce’s neck.

Bruce took his advice, taking in deep, long breaths until he collected himself enough to continue. “It wasn’t until months later when Joker sent a package to GCPD, addressed to the Batman,” he said, just above a whisper. “There were videos. He had Jason. He was torturing him and recording every minute of it.”

Dick inhaled sharply. “How many times did you watch those videos, Bruce?” he asked, although he already suspected the answer, making a mental note to ask Alfred for the videos so he could keep them away from Bruce.

“I had to make sure that I wasn’t missing any clues on their location,” Bruce said, and of course that was how he justified his self-destructive behaviour. “But Joker was careful. The only visible things in the frame were Jason and him. It looked like they were in a surgery room, but I checked every hospital and clinic in Gotham.”

_ Why didn’t you call me, I could’ve helped_, Dick wanted to ask, wanted so bad to scream as he gripped onto Bruce tightly. But it was pointless to know Bruce’s reasons now. Jason was already dead and Bruce- Bruce was still here.

“Joker sent another package two weeks ago. It only had one video.”

Bruce trembled in Dick’s arms before collapsing completely against the younger man, his broad shoulders quaking as he sobbed silently. 

“He’d broken him,” Bruce choked out. “Mocked him again before he shot him in the head. My _son_.”

Dick’s heart clenched at his words, at Bruce’s tears.

He had never seen Bruce cry before, not even once.

Bruce wasn’t one for openly showing his emotions, sans that one time he’d gone into heat unexpectedly, and Dick wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do now. He wanted to comfort him, make the tears stop, but _ how_? The Joker had ruined Jason, and Bruce had helplessly watched him do it, who knew how many times over. If it had been Dick in his shoes-

Dick might’ve lost his brother, but Bruce had lost a _ son_.

(Dick wasn’t so sure that Jason had been the only one the Joker had broken.)

“It’s all my fault,” Bruce wept, clutching Dick tighter. “I should’ve protected him, I should’ve never brought him into this.”

“Hush, Bruce,” Dick murmured, pulling away just enough to cup Bruce’s face in his hands, to lift it up and kiss the tears away. “You couldn’t have known, you did your best for him. Don’t do this to yourself.”

Bruce stifled more sobs, inhaling deeply through his nose, his lips pursing so tightly that they were white lines on his tortured face. Dick’s heart wrenched further at the sight, and before he knew it, he was surging forward, pressing his lips against Bruce’s, trying to convey as much love and reassurance as he could in the only other way he knew how.

Bruce sobbed against his lips, clinging tighter to Dick, who pushed him gently until they were lying on their sides on the bed, still kissing chastely.

Dick didn’t pull away until Bruce’s lips stopped quivering under his, until Bruce’s eyes fell closed in helpless exhaustion and his scent became less sharp in the air. 

Dick brushed his hands across Bruce’s damp cheeks, carding his fingers through his ungelled hair, and hummed an old tune under his breath, a song his mother used to sing to him that Dick barely remembered the words to.

Bruce’s arms relaxed around Dick, slowly but surely, and Dick pulled him close again, tucking Bruce’s head under his chin.

They fell asleep like that, curled into each other’s sorrows, and when Dick woke up the next morning, he was alone in his own room.


	5. Chapter 5

Jason wakes up to a soreness in his ass that he hasn’t felt since his time in Venezuela, all those days when Slade would piss him off on fucking purpose.

Except, he knows it’s not Slade’s fault this time, because he’s not in Venezuela.

He’s in Gotham, in Wayne Manor. In his old bed, to be exact, and he’s covered in bruises and his ribs still ache something fierce.

But there are arms wrapped around his waist, and a face pressed into the skin between his shoulder blades, and the room smells like the basement of a sex trafficking ring. Jason closes his eyes and breathes it in deep, relishing the scent of Dick’s heat and the two of them, mixed together.

It’s been two days. At least, Jason thinks it has.

He has vague memories of Alfred passing trays of food and clean clothes and sheets from the door; opened just wide enough for those things to pass through because Dick is apparently a possessive, violent little fucker when he’s out of his mind with heat-fever. 

Jason winces at a particularly clear recollection of Dick snapping his jaws at Alfred’s hand, and the tussle that had ensued between them afterwards.

(Jason had been pissed that Dick had tried to hurt Alfred, while Dick had intermittently kept trying to fuck Jason, or goad Jason into fucking _ him_.

Jason had won that fight, but he has a sneaking suspicion that Dick had let him.)

Jason remembers Dick’s heats bottoming out by around the second or third day of his cycles, back when they were younger. He’s not sure if that’s changed, but considering he hadn’t woken up balls-deep in Dick, he’s sure that it hasn’t. 

Dick’s scent has returned mostly to normal too, as far as Jason can tell, but then again, scents are fickle things. They’re not always the most reliable of signs, not when it comes to heat-fevers.

He’s pulled out of his musings when he feels Dick nuzzling at his back, his lips moving against Jason’s skin. Jason can’t make out what Dick is saying, but it sounds like he’s talking in his sleep.

Jason almost smiles at the thought. _ Almost_.

He tries to move instead, tugging at the arm thrown over his side. Dick stubbornly refuses to move it, wrapping it tighter instead, and Jason huffs with annoyance, tugging harder.

“No,” he hears Dick whine, still half-muffled against his skin. “No, mmh…”

Jason considers waking him up, maybe straining Dick’s wrist enough that the pain will jolt him to consciousness immediately, but then Dick runs his hands up Jason’s chest, shifting closer against his back. Dick’s skin is still heated up, and his palms feel like burning brands against Jason’s neck, where his fingers wrap around Jason loosely.

“Dick,” Jason says. His hackles are rising now; something’s not right. He frowns, reaching up to grasp at Dick’s wrists.

“_No_,” he hears Dick insist. He sounds distressed, even though his scent hasn’t changed, and then Dick’s tightening his hands around Jason’s throat.

It’s just a little pressure at first, not unlike the rough play they’ve been throwing at each other for the past fourty-eight hours, but then Jason’s airway is closed off, and Dick doesn’t loosen up, even after minutes have passed. 

Jason can hold his breath for about four minutes, but that’s usually underwater; not when he’s being earnestly strangled by the man he’s been pining after for the past decade or so, and especially not after they’ve been fucking non-stop for the past two days.

“**Don’t**, I’ll kill you, Catalina, fucking _ kill _ you ** _dead_**-” 

Jason tries not to panic as he grips Dick’s wrists tighter, panicking would only make him pass out faster. But it’s hard not to freak out when Dick - _ Dick _ fucking _ Grayson _ \- is trying to choke you and threatening to kill you, even if it’s just in his sleep. Jason doesn’t want to hurt him, but he’s already feeling light-headed.

When Dick doesn’t seem to be registering the grip on his wrists, Jason rolls over instead, throwing his whole weight down against him. He hears Dick gasp, and his fingers finally uncurl, and Jason coughs and sucks in air desperately, throwing Dick’s arms off of him before he rolls over again, out of the bed and onto the floor.

He sees Dick sit up, breathing heavily, his hair mussed and his eyes wide with confusion and alarm.

“Jason?” he croaks out, crawling forward and leaning over the edge of the bed. “Are you okay?”

Jason stares at him, rubbing at his sore neck. Dick looks as disoriented as Jason feels.

“You were strangling me.” It isn’t that hard to get the words out. What’s hard is watching Dick’s eyes widen further before his expression crumbles, and Dick flinches back from him like Jason’s the one that had attacked _ him_.

“I’m sorry,” Dick says, guilt-stricken. His scent _ does _ change now, sour with remorse, and the acridity of it stings Jason’s nostrils. “I didn’t- do you need me to call Alfred?”

Jason stares at him. Dick looks like he’s going to be sick, and he’s clutching at the sheets so tightly that his knuckles have turned white. There shouldn’t be anything attractive about him right now, sleep-mussed and stinking of abject apology. 

But he’s covered in bruises and lovebites, the glaring mark of a claiming bite strikingly noticeable on his scent gland; and it’s all because of _ Jason_. Jason had done that to him, had marred his skin so thoroughly, had wrecked him to the point that Dick had begged Jason desperately to breed him full. To keep him on his back, plugged up and bloated with Jason’s come.

Dick is Jason’s now. Jason had taken him. Dick could put on a purple suit and dye his hair green and smear white makeup all over his face, and Jason would still fuck him if he asked nicely enough.

_ Please, Jay please, god I need you, I need you so much, fuck me hard, little wing, need your cock_-

And Jason knows how _ nice _ Dick can be.

“Was it a nightmare?” It had to be. Jason’s just not sure what kind of nightmare Dick could possibly have had that would drive him to want to _ kill_.

Dick flounders at the question, obviously unprepared for it. There’s a knock on the door before he can come up with a lie, and Dick’s relief is palpable as he quickly grabs a corner of the bedsheets and covers himself up as he says, “We’re decent!”

It’s Tim. Jason knows, even before the door pushes open, because Bruce never knocks and Alfred doesn’t come up here this early and Damian has school.

Jason climbs to his feet and snarls at the black-haired figure that stands in the doorway. It’s mostly instincts, but Jason’s unashamed to admit that he _ wants _ to do it too. If the Replacement has the balls to show his face in front of Jason, then he should have the balls to take whatever posturing Jason’s alpha dishes out for his freshly-claimed mate.

To his credit, Tim simply bows his head, keeping his hands in front of him to show that he means no harm. He doesn’t even smell scared, and while his fearless submission pleases Jason’s alpha, Jason himself resents it immensely. He _ wishes _ Tim would give him an excuse to fight him.

“Thought you said you were decent,” Tim says wryly.

“What? _ Oh_, oh sorry, Tim.” Jason growls when Dick tosses a blanket from the mess of a nest on the bed at him, but Dick just glares warningly before looking back at the Replacement. “Ignore him, he’s just sore.”

“Right. Well, we’ve got a situation.”

Dick’s out of the bed in seconds then, wrapping the sheets around his waist, his expression serious and wary. “What happened?”

Tim glances over at Jason, brief but pointed. “Bruce said it would be best to have this discussion in the Batcave.”

Jason knows what the Replacement means. They don’t trust him, and it’s nothing he’s not used to. What he _ isn’t _ used to is the pang of hurt at this reminder, and he growls angrily before he can stop himself.

“Jason,” he hears Dick say, but Jason’s too busy glaring down the Replacement. “Jason, stop it. Just- wait here, okay? I’ll be right back.”

Jason turns his glare on Dick instead. “Don’t bother, I know my way out,” he snaps, tossing the blanket in his hands back at Dick before looking around for his clothes.

“No, Jason-”

Jason’s found his pants, half-under the bed, and pulls them on violently. He feels Dick’s hands on his arms, tugging at him, but Jason shrugs him off and grabs a random hoodie from the nest on the bed.

“Jason, _ please_.” Dick sounds awful, and the distress in his scent has worsened.

Jason wants to apologize and make him smell like himself again, but he won’t let himself do that. He won’t- he can’t let them do this to him, can’t let them use him as they please. Jason’s so fucking _ tired _ of it.

Dick grabs his arms again as he pulls on the hoodie, and Jason shoves him away, perhaps a little more violently than necessary. Dick stumbles backwards, trips over the sheets around his waist, and drops onto his ass on the floor with a surprised grunt.

Jason swallows down the guilt and strides over to the door, calling over his shoulder, “Have fun fucking yourselves.”

\---

Somehow, he manages to get himself back to one of his safehouses in Otisburg without killing anyone.

Founders’ Island is a lot different now than it had been when the Militia had taken control of it. Most of the construction had been completed in the past year and a half, largely thanks to a generous donation from Bruce Wayne - as well as Luthor and Queen - to assist with Gotham’s reparations after the whole Scarecrow debacle.

The old roads leading to the ruins under Ryker Heights had been all but sealed off, with a few access points left leading to the port and the sewers.

One of the few things that _ haven’t _changed though is that Jason’s still in control of those points. He uses his Red Hood underlings to scare off anyone curious or stupid enough to venture too close, and they pay off the cops that aren’t entirely as clean as Cash likes to think.

He takes a cold shower to numb the soreness in his whole body, and then half-heartedly listens to his lieutenants report on recent events in the streets.

Black Mask loyalists stirring trouble here, Killer Croc sightings near the port there, a couple of rookie cops asking for more than their usual payouts. It’s all bullshit things that Jason just needs to know for show, and Jason finds himself nodding off behind his mask ten minutes into their little ‘meeting’. Until-

“Cobblepot plans on selling the Batman’s identity to the highest bidder.”

Jason snaps to attention _ then_, because _ what_.

“Say that again?”

He’s got twenty over lieutenants taking care of the shit that he can’t be bothered to do himself, but there are only three in the room with him right now. 

He recognizes one of them as Carmen, a woman that used to work for the Maronis. She’s a tough lady, dangerous with a knife, and currently, she’s looking at him like Jason’s just grown two heads.

“Um, Oswald Cobblepot is planning on selling the Batman’s identity to the highest bidder?” she repeats, hesitant. “At the auction tomorrow night.”

_ What the fuck_. “What auction?”

His voice modulator doesn’t convey emotions too well, not unless Jason’s intent on conveying emotion. Right now, it sounds like he’s annoyed, because Jason _ is _ annoyed, and Carmen flinches at the sound of it.

“The auction at the strip club, My Alibi,” she says, glancing at the other two lieutenants for help.

One of them, a black man with a scar on the side of his shaved head, obliges. “We got word of it last week,” he explains. “Cobblepot had a new shipment in from Blüdhaven, they were supposed to be on the block. But he’s been spreading news about Batman’s identity a couple of days ago, said something about having proof to back up the claim too.”

_ I should’ve killed the bastard when I took down Sionis_. “Is it legitimate?” He knows it is. Barbara had said so herself; Dick had sent her Penguin’s encryption codes before he and Bruce had gone missing. 

Jason should’ve been more thorough. Scarecrow and Harley had been behind the toxin, but clearly Penguin’s the one that had asked for it. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s tried drugs against them.

Jason wants to punch himself for being so stupid. He should’ve known something was up with that; sex had never been Scarecrow’s MO, even if the sex wrought terror, and Harley’s only been obsessed with Batman’s death and little else.

“He’s starting the bid at 2 million,” Carmen says. “He’s hired more security too. Expensive assholes. I don’t think he’s lying.”

Jason stands, startling his lieutenants. “I’m adjourning. Go back to your jobs. I’ll be busy for a while.”

Jason throws his chair against a wall when he’s alone, watching it splinter with satisfaction.

He thinks about telling Bruce about this discovery, but this morning’s brush-off still stings sharply. A part of him _ wants _ to let Penguin sell Batman out to whoever’s willing to pay, _ wants _ to watch Bruce fall.

** _It would teach him a lesson_**, voices whisper nastily in Jason’s ear. ** _Prove to him you’ve been right all along_**. 

There’s no _ rehabilitation _ for these fucking bastards, no _ turning over a new leaf _ no matter how many times Batman throws them behind bars. The only way to stop them is to stop them_ permanently_.

But… what will happen when Bruce is discovered?

What will happen to Wayne Enterprises? To Alfred? To Damian and the goddamn Replacement? If Bruce isn’t killed on the streets, he’ll be arrested and killed in prison. More criminals hate Batman than they do cops; no matter how good Bruce is, he won’t survive _ that_.

And the thought of Bruce dying by anyone’s hand but Jason’s own makes the anger under his skin boil hotter, and even the voices in his ear hiss with disapproval.

Jason slams a fist down the meeting table so hard that it cracks right down the middle, and then he’s holstering his guns and checking for ammo before he’s off.

** _How do you kill a Penguin in the most painful way possible_** _?_

\---

[**I’ve cleared the backroom**. **How’s your end**, **Nightwing**?]

“Right as rain, baby bird.”

[**Told you not to call me that**.]

“But it suits you.”

[**I’m not a ** ** _baby_**.]

[**_Focus_**. ** Who has visual on Cobblepot**?]

“I’m outside his office now. There’s no movement, no heat signatures.”

[**He’s out**? **That’s convenient**.]

[**A little ** ** _too_ ** ** convenient**. **Nightwing**, **search for the evidence**. **Red Robin**, **maintain position and cover him if necessary**.]

[**Right**.]

Tim sounds sullen at being told to stay away, and Dick grins to himself, remembering exactly how that had once annoyed him too. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of being told by Batman to stay out of the way.

It had been a chore trying to convince Bruce to let the two of them come here in the first place. Bruce had been adamantly against it, had been planning to go by himself. But Dick had argued that if Cobblepot now knows that the Batman is Bruce Wayne, there’s no doubt that he would be watching the manor, watching for any movements Bruce might make.

There hadn’t been anything about Nightwing’s own identity, or either of the Robins, so Dick and Tim were the safer bets to retrieve whatever ‘evidence’ Cobblepot has been claiming he has on Bruce Wayne. 

Dick’s shimmying through the air vents leading into Cobblepot’s office, and he’s almost there when a sharp, vaguely floral scent in the air stuns him for a moment. It’s mixed in with something metallic, with the coppery sting of blood, and it’s so familiar, but different too. 

It nearly sends Dick on an unwanted path down memory lane, but Dick sucks in a breath and keeps moving.

[**Nightwing**. **Your vitals spiked**. **Did something happen**?]

“Nothing, just- remembered I left the oven on back home.”

[**In ** ** _Blüdhaven_**?] Tim sounds so incredulous that Dick can’t help but grin to himself.

Bruce doesn’t even deign to respond, which is exactly what Dick had been hoping for.

“Don’t worry, Red. I’m sure my insurance will cover the fire.”

[**You’re a mess**.]

“I get by.”

Tim chuckles in his ear, but Dick barely has time to congratulate himself on a job well done when he reaches the other side of the vent. 

The scent of blood is stronger now, and Dick doesn’t need Bruce to tell him that his heart rate is picking up again. Dick can feel it thudding through his chest as he recognizes that awful scent underlying the smell of blood in the air; the scent of fresh _ death_.

Dick hates the mix of the two, and it’s probably his heat’s fault, but his body tenses without his permission, ready to fight and attack as he drops down from the vent’s opening.

He lands on the ground with a loud, disgusting squelch, directly in a thick puddle of coagulating blood. It’s recent enough that it’s not completely dried, and Dick crouches down defensively, scanning the room.

Nobody’s there, and the air is stagnant, heavy and still. There’s overturned furniture, and it’s obvious to anyone that there’s been a huge struggle in there. The large window behind the one desk and high-backed chair on the far end of the room is missing its glass.

[**Nightwing**, **report**. **You’re spiking again**.]

Dick ignores Bruce, making his way over to the desk. There used to be a computer there, but it looks like whoever had been in here had taken it. There are plugs torn out and left behind, along with a keyboard that’s no longer connected to anything. Next to the desk is a short drawer, and those have been emptied out, too.

It looks like the thief had been searching for evidence as well.

“Someone beat us to it, B,” Dick says. “The place has been ransacked.” Bruce doesn’t answer him. “Red Robin, pull out. I’ll look around and see if I can find anything the mystery thief left behind.”

[**No**. **I have a list of the people Cobblepot was trying to sell the Batman’s identity to**. ** I can narrow down the ones with the resources to successfully burgle him**. **It’s too risky to be outside right now**. **Return to the cave for debriefing**.]

Dick grits his teeth irritably at the obvious order. “I’m right _ here_, B. I can find clues, it’ll help cut down that list faster.”

[**_No_**. **Back to the cave**, **Dick**. **I won’t let you endanger yourself**.]

Dick’s sure both Bruce and Tim can hear how hard he’s grinding his jaw now, and has to force himself to answer. “_Fine_. I’m on my way. Nightwing out.”

He cuts the link and sets his comm offline. Like _ hell _ he’s going to just leave a perfectly fresh crime scene like this. Bruce will figure out he’d lied if he takes any longer than half an hour to get back to the manor and checks Dick’s tracker, so Dick moves fast.

The puddle he’d landed in earlier isn’t the only one on the floor, and Dick quickly finds others, some spread out like something had been dragged through them. Probably whoever had been bleeding had been trying to run away from their attacker. Dick hopes they’d made it; at least he would have someone to get answers from.

Dick checks the shelves in the room, pulls out files and books that look like they hadn’t been disturbed. There’s nothing related to Batman, and Dick checks time, frustrated when he realizes that five minutes have passed and he’s still got nothing.

It’s not until he’s checking a shelf by the window that Dick notices the bloody handprints on the sill, where there are also jagged pieces of glass jutting out. The window had been broken in. Or rather, broken _ out _it seems, since there isn’t much glass on the floor in the office for a window of this size.

Cautiously, Dick moves over to it, and leans over the edge, only to freeze when he sees a dead body hanging from a steel winch mounted into the wall, just under the window pane.

A _ familiar _ dead body, swaying slightly in the wind, its stained white shirt almost entirely red; soaked in its owner’s own blood. 

The back of what had once been a smooth, bald head has been reduced to a gory mess of blood and brains, the damage recent enough that bits of it are still dribbling out the craggy rim of the hole in the cracked skull.

Dick doesn’t know how long he stands there, just staring blankly down at the corpse of Oswald Cobblepot, his mind not quite able to absorb the fact that the man is _ dead_, least of all in such a gruesome manner.

Gruesome, because even in his shock, Dick’s taking in all the damage that’s been done to the crime lord, cataloguing the injuries almost on autopilot, and it’s _ brutal_.

_ Missing his left arm, a clean cut. Probably a meat cleaver, or a very sharp knife. Pattern of the blood trail strongly implies he was alive when it happened. _

_ Both ears missing, too. Jagged skin, a piece of cartilage dangling on the left. Bare-handed. _

_ No pants. Telling blood stains down his legs. Post-mortem bruising. The work of a necrophiliac? Or a sadist? Possibly both. _

_ Can’t see his face, but there’s a distinct lack of eyeballs visible from the back of the empty skull. That, and the twin gaping holes that _ are _ visible indicate that his eyes had been torn out. _

It’s torture, that’s what this had been, and that’s only all the things that Dick can see from this vantage. Cobblepot had been tortured before someone had put a bullet through his head, and hung him out here for all the world to see.

Dick thinks he should feel sick at this conclusion, but honestly, he feels _ nothing_.

** _Nothing_**_?_something in the back of his mind giggles hysterically. ** _Nonono_**_, _ ** _it’s not _ ** **nothing**_. _ ** _ Nothing is what dead_**_, _ ** _ old Penguin’s feeling now_**_. _ **You**_, _ ** _you’re feeling _ ** **something ** ** _alright_**.

“Nightwing.”

He swings on instinct, and whoever had approached him barely manages to dodge his fist as they jump back with a surprised grunt.

“What the _ hell_, Dick!” Tim hisses, and Dick can only blink back at him rapidly. “What’s wrong with you? We were supposed to go back to the cave!”

Dick shakes his head, feeling disoriented for some reason. “Red Robin,” he mutters. “Tim.” Tim’s here, with him. In Penguin’s office. Why are they here again?

“Nightwing,” he hears Tim say cautiously. “What’s wrong?”

Dick rubs at his temples, wondering the same goddamn thing himself. Is his heat really affecting him this badly? He’s never felt like this before. He’s never felt like- like he’s not all there, and seeing Cobblepot’s mangled corpse-

_ Right_. Dick clicks his comm back on and looks over at Tim as he says, “The Penguin is dead. Someone tortured him before blowing his brains out.”

“_What_?”

“It’s probably the same person that stole his computer. They might have even stolen the evidence he was keeping on Batman.”

[**Are you sure it’s him**?]

Dick motions over at the window, silently asking Tim to see for himself. He wishes he could spare the kid the trauma, but he doesn’t- he’s _ not _ sure if he isn’t just seeing things. He’s been out of it since his heat had started. He doesn't know if there _ is _ anything wrong with him, but there’s definitely something not quite right.

He knows the moment Tim sees Cobblepot’s body, because the younger man inhales sharply, breathing out an alarmed, “_Holy shit_.”

It’s enough of an answer for Bruce.

[**I’ll contact Cash to set up a crime scene and clear out the body**. **Did you find anything else**?]

“No, but-” Dick watches Tim gape down at Cobblepot’s body, and he knows that it’s _ real._ “B, he’s really- _ not _ pretty. Whoever did this, it looks personal.”

[**You think we might know the perpetrator**.] Bruce sounds more tired than anything else as he says that, and Dick winces sympathetically.

“Yeah, I do.”

[**Get back to the cave**. ** I’ve sent Cash a message**. **He’ll be there in five minutes**.]

Bruce’s comm link clicks offline and Dick moves to stand next to Tim. “Hey, can you do me a favour?”

Tim leans back from the broken window and raises a brow over at him. “Is it going to piss Bruce off?”

Dick shrugs. “_Maybe_.”

“Depends on what the favour is then.”

“I just need you to cover for me while I get some things settled. Couple of hours, tops.”

Tim tilts his head, and Dick knows from experience that his eyes are probably narrowing critically underneath his domino mask. 

After a moment, Tim clicks off his comm and asks, “The oven in Blüdhaven?”

Dick can’t help but smile at that. Tim’s always been smarter than any of them had ever been. “The oven in Blüdhaven,” Dick agrees.

Tim crosses his arms and huffs. “Fine, but you’ll owe me one.”

Dick throws his arms around him and hugs tight, knowing that it pisses the kid off almost as much as kissing cheeks pisses of Damian. Tim flails under his weight and predictably complains, even though they both know that he can very well throw Dick off in at least twenty different moves.

“Thanks, baby bird!”

“I’m not a baby!”

Dick chuckles, nuzzling at Tim’s scent gland, and Tim relaxes with a groan. “Not _ fair_,” he whines.

Dick only lets go when they can hear the distant sound of sirens approaching, and they both share a look.

“That’s our cue to leave,” Dick says as he pulls his grapple gun out. “Ready?”

Tim pulls out his own and nods, but when Dick takes aim, Tim stops him with a hand on his arm. His expression is wary when Dick looks over at him.

“If the oven turns out to be broken, I’ll have to tell Bruce,” Tim says seriously. Dick’s too aware that it’s his way of telling Dick that he _ knows_.

_ Way too goddamn smart_. 

Dick grips his gun tighter and smiles wryly. “Fair.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Back Then**

Dick hadn’t gone back to Gotham after Jason’s death.

He couldn’t, even if he’d wanted to. Every rooftop reminded him of Jason, and every street he passed made him feel like Jason would jump out at him from the shadows and shout, “Surprise!”

It didn’t feel real, Jason dying. The shock at the funeral still hadn’t completely worn off after all, and Dick spent all his time keeping himself busy with the Titans and the League. More heroes were joining, more villains showing their colours. They needed all the help they could get.

So Dick threw himself into being Nightwing 24/7, into being the friend and hero that everyone needed. Because being Nightwing _ all the time _ meant that he never _ had time _to be Dick Grayson, never had time to dwell on the past.

Bruce was avoiding him anyway, and doing much the same thing Dick was. He’d been absent from League meetings for months, had retreated to working through his rogues gallery in Gotham and not much else. Alfred was worried Bruce was working himself ragged out of some sense of misplaced guilt.

Dick had been keeping tabs on him, at least once in a while, and he knew that Alfred’s concerns were valid. But Dick couldn’t bring himself to do anything about them. 

He didn’t _ hate _ Bruce. He just- couldn’t stand him. He couldn’t stand Bruce’s method of grieving, couldn’t stand Bruce’s need to be dark and brooding all the time. Maybe Bruce thrived on that darkness; was even a better man for it, for every piece of shit that he threw behind bars, threw into Arkham. But Dick wasn’t Bruce. He didn’t _ want _ to be Bruce.

He didn’t want to lose himself in the darkness that Bruce obsessively cultivated, and if that meant staying away from the Batman, staying away from Gotham and Wayne Manor, well.

No one could ever accuse either of them of having healthy coping mechanisms.

Superman had something to say about that though.

\---

Dick had just come back from a mission with the other Titans that had somehow involved Slade - _ again _ \- in a roundabout and unnecessarily convoluted way, and all he’d wanted to do was finish his post-mission report and go to bed. 

He hadn’t slept for three days; he was getting grouchy, Gar had kindly told him earlier.

(And by _ kindly_, Dick really meant that Gar had sat on Dick in tiger form and refused to let Dick up as the other Titans listed off all the numerous reasons why Dick not sleeping was a very-not-good-thing.

At least they hadn’t tried to lock him in his room. That would’ve ended badly for everyone. 

Dick had all the security codes for the whole building after all, and enough childish pettiness to retaliate in _ creative _ ways.)

Dick just needed to get the report out of the way and then he could finally lie down and-

“He’s not handling it well.”

Dick hadn’t heard Clark enter his room, but he was too tired to really feel shocked at his presence.

“Hello to you too, Superman, I’m perfectly fine, thanks for asking,” Dick said, still typing. 

He frowned when he re-read that last sentence and counted five typos. There were only five words. He _ definitely _ needed some shut-eye.

“Sorry, Dick.” Clark floated over to his side, and Dick felt goosebumps rising on his skin at the slight breeze Clark produced with his cape. “Your blood pressure is too high and you’ve lost a lot of weight since the last meeting. You haven’t been sleeping.”

Dick corrected the typos and re-read the sentence. He realized that it didn’t make a lick of sense anyway and proceeded to delete the whole line before he turned to look up at Clark.

“You can tell all that with your x-ray vision?” The question was a formality. Bruce had a whole drive full of exactly what Clark could and couldn’t do. Dick knew perfectly well that he was right.

Clark smiled wanly, like he knew that, too. “I don’t need x-ray vision to see that. You look awful, Dick.”

Dick shrugged and turned back to his computer. “Thanks, it’s the new cologne. It’s called mind-your-own-goddamn-business.”

“Dick.”

Clark rested a hand on his shoulder and Dick wanted to push him off. He did. Clark retreated a few feet away with a defeated sigh.

“I know it’s not the Bat-way to do things but the two of you really need to _ talk_,” Dick heard him say. “The media is turning him into a monster. It sounds like he’s beating up criminals for fun. He sounds _ unhinged_. If this goes on any longer, you know the League won’t have a choice but to intervene.”

Dick stared at the computer screen, letting his vision unfocus between the glaring pixels. 

Intervene. 

It was a nice way of saying ‘lock him up like we do the supervillains we’ve taken down in the past’ and Dick felt a burst of anger at the audacity of Clark saying that to him. The ungrateful bastard.

Clark could’ve been one of those villains, too. He could’ve gone dark-side so many times in the past, but Bruce had stopped him single-handedly, almost every single time. Bruce had always been there for him.

The anger faded almost as quickly as it had come, though. Rationally, Dick knew Clark was right. Rationally, Dick knew that this _ was _ Clark’s way of repaying Bruce for all those times Bruce had pulled him out of the darkness. 

Clark respected Bruce too much to go to Gotham directly without Bruce’s permission. That was why he was here, talking to Dick instead.

Dick reached up and buried his face in his hands, inhaling deeply.

“I can’t,” he said into his palms, his words shaky and weak. “I _ can’t_, Clark. Not now, not yet. It’s too soon, I don’t- I’m not even sure if I _ could _ do anything, why am I the one that _ has _ to do anything about it in the first place? Why does _ he _ get to lose it like this and _ I’m _ here, pretending that everything’s okay when it’s _ fucking _ not?”

_ Why am I the one here still breathing, when Jason’s not? _

Dick was crying, and he couldn’t make himself stop. He closed his eyes, but still the tears spilled over, and he ground his palms against his eyelids, keening in the back of his throat. He could feel Clark move closer, and then hands resting on his shoulders and pulling him against a broad chest, and Dick went because he didn’t have any strength left to pretend.

Clark was one of the worst comforters that Dick had ever met. It was primarily due to the fact that Kryptons didn’t have a gender, didn’t have the noses to naturally interpret human scent, and Clark didn’t understand the function of a scent gland. He couldn’t even purr, or growl right.

But he was _ there_, right then, and Dick would take whatever he could get.

Vaguely, he could hear Clark speaking to him, but Dick didn’t have the capacity to register any of his words. He was _ tired_. He was just so fucking _ tired_.

He didn’t know how long he cried before he passed out from sheer exhaustion, and he wasn’t sure how long he’d been unconscious when he woke up later, tucked in bed. He felt a sliver of shame as he recalled his mini-breakdown in front of Superman, but there was also a lightness in his bones that felt something like relief. He’d needed that.

Dick checked the time before he rolled over onto his side and went back to sleep. He woke up again several hours later, and when he climbed out of bed to go to the bathroom, he saw a note sitting on his desk.

It was from Clark.

_ He’ll never admit it but he needs you more than he needs any of us. I think you do too. Go to Gotham, Dick. For both your sakes. _

_ \- CK _

\---

Dick didn’t go to Gotham, though.

Clark’s little note didn’t miraculously make him feel better, didn’t do anything besides make Dick hate himself a little bit more because he knew Clark was right. But it didn’t mean Dick _ still _ couldn’t face his own grief.

He was being selfish and Dick knew it, and Dick hated it, but he still couldn’t make himself do anything about it.

Five more months passed in the blink of an eye, and Dick found himself in Blüdhaven again.

Rohrbach had called in a favour. A new gang was pushing drugs on the streets that landed almost every buyer in the hospital, and word was that the leader was a ‘masked freak’. BPD wasn’t touching the case with a ten-foot pole, but people were starting to die. She was desperate to make it stop.

It was a straightforward job. Dick tracked down the so-called ‘masked freak’ - who wasn’t even a meta and had a lame ass name like ‘Dreadlord’ or something - and took him in, along with every one of his dealers. Dreadlord claimed that the deaths were just a bad batch, but Dick destroyed their labs anyway and made sure there wasn’t any of the drugs left.

He was in Blüdhaven for less than three days, and he wasn’t planning on staying for much longer. It was still too close to Gotham for comfort. 

But Dick got a visitor at the hotel he was staying at on the third night he was there, just as he was getting ready to leave.

The peephole told him it was a _ kid_, and Dick answered the door with a frown. “Are you lost?”

The kid was slight and short, probably a good five years younger than Dick, if not more. His dark hair fell into his blue eyes almost the same way that Jason’s used to though, and for a moment, Dick couldn’t breathe. 

Besides his hair and the colour of his eyes, the kid doesn’t look anything like Jason - his blues aren’t even the same shade, honestly - but the defensive slouch of his shoulders and the determined set of his jaw were jarringly similar.

“Richard Grayson?” the kid said after a moment. His eyes seemed to widen as they stared up at Dick. “I’m Timothy Drake.”

He didn’t offer a hand to shake, and Dick stared back at him, confused. His name didn’t ring any bells and he didn’t say anything else. The silence that stretched following his introduction was starting to become awkward.

Dick sighed and said, “Okay, look kid, it’s getting late and it’s been a really long day for me. Can you come back in a few hours-”

“I know about your night job. I know about Bruce Wayne’s, too.”

The kid, Tim. His eyes bulged out of their sockets as he said that, like he hadn’t actually meant to blurt that out. It was clear that he was telling the truth, or at least he _ thought _ he was.

If Dick had been in better shape, in a better state of mind, he would’ve just laughed off Tim’s claim and pretend he didn’t know what Tim was talking about, and send him away before digging up whatever he could on ‘Timothy Drake’. 

He would’ve denied every possible argument Tim might have had to justify what he thought was real, and if that didn’t work, Dick would’ve closed the door on Tim’s face anyway and let Alfred know about him. He was just a kid; he probably just wanted an autograph or something. Alfred could deal with him.

But Dick _ wasn’t _ alright. He was sleep-deprived again, and agitated at being so close to Gotham - but not close _ enough _ \- so instead of doing either of that, Dick grabbed the front of Tim’s shirt and pulled him inside the hotel room, closing the door and bolting it securely.

“Explain,” he demanded, holding the kid up against the wall in the entryway. “And tell me what you want.”

Tim’s eyes widened impossibly further but he didn’t struggle against Dick. In fact, in the enclosed space, Dick could clearly make out his grounding combination of spicy cinnamon and something crisply woody; disarmingly cozy, like a night by a campfire. He didn’t smell scared at all. If anything, he smelled _ excited_.

“I don’t want anything,” Tim said, looking up at Dick with the sincerity of the ingenuous. “I know he’s Batman, but that’s not why I came here tonight. I know Jason Todd died.”

Dick’s fingers clenched tightly into the material of Tim’s shirt at the mention of Jason.

“_Do not _ say that name,” he hissed. “You don’t know _ anything _about him.”

Tim flinched, but it was more sympathetic than anything else. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I _ don’t _ know him, but I _ do _ know that he was Robin. And Batman _ needs _ a Robin.”

Tim reached up hesitantly and rested his hands over Dick’s. In a gentle, earnest tone, he said, “You need to come back to Gotham. The darkness is consuming him, it’s too- too _ corrosive_. Batman needs a Robin to stop it from overwhelming him. I’ve been watching you guys for years, Mr. Grayson. You know I’m right.”

It sounded weird, hearing that from a total stranger. Dick almost thought Clark might have sent this kid here to convince Dick to talk to Bruce, that maybe Tim was a superhero Dick hadn’t known about. 

But that was impossible because even if Batman had been staying out of League business, he was still updating his ridiculous ‘contingency archive’, still tagging every hero and villain that popped up, almost religiously. Dick would’ve recognized Tim’s name, if nothing else.

Dick stared at Tim silently before letting go of the kid. He knew he was going to regret it, but-

“You want a drink?” he asked with a sigh, not waiting for an answer before moving deeper into the room.

“I’m sixteen,” he heard Tim say as he followed after Dick.

Dick rummaged through the minibar and tossed a can of soda over his shoulder, noting absently that Tim had pretty good reflexes as the kid caught it, even if he fumbled with it a little. Dick grabbed a beer for himself.

“Alright, should I ask why you’ve been watching Batman, or how you figured out who he was first?”

Tim’s expression became solemn as Dick turned to face him. “I was at Haly’s that night,” he said in a reverent tone. “I watched you and your- your parents. I watched them fall.”

Dick didn’t say anything, taking a sip of the beer instead. Tim took it as a sign to continue.

“I saw you make a quadruple backflip trying to get to them. The ringmaster said only three people in the world could pull that off and then six months later, I saw Robin do it on TV.

So I looked you up. You two were pretty good at covering your tracks, but when you’ve seen the connection, when your hypothesis already has a given conclusion, it isn’t that difficult to fill in all the other variables. You didn’t make it _ easy_, but it wasn’t impossible either. That’s how I figured out you were Robin.”

Dick almost laughed at how simple Tim made it sound. “So you’re saying it was all basically _ my _ fault?”

Tim flushed, clutching at his soda can and looking alarmed. “Well no, I mean- kind of? It’s not like a lot of people actually believed what the ringmaster said. Or even remembered, I guess.”

“What made _ you _ different then?”

“... I had hope.” 

Tim’s blush faded, and he averted his gaze, staring down at the floor. “I was following Batman’s movements even long before that night. I thought- no, I _ believed _ in him. He was good for Gotham. When Batman appeared with a new sidekick in tow, someone that could do what only _ you _could; it just clicked. And if you were Robin, and you were Bruce Wayne’s ward, then how far fetched could it be that Bruce Wayne was Batman?”

Tim inhaled deeply and finally looked up again, a hopeful look in his eyes. “Did any of that make sense to you?”

And what could Dick say to that? Of course it made sense, it made perfect sense; because it was all true. 

This sixteen-year-old kid with a hard-on for the Batman had figured it all out, and the only thing Dick wasn’t sure of was whether to laugh or slap himself for being the one that had inadvertently let the bat out of the bag, in a manner of speaking.

He seriously needed some sleep.

“Listen Tim,” he said, and Tim stood to attention, eager to hear what Dick had to say. It made Dick cringe. “You’re right. About everything. But I don’t understand why you’re _ telling _ me this. Don’t you realize that it’s dangerous to have that knowledge? Don’t you think that I would have to do something about it?”

Instead of fear, like Dick had expected Tim to feel at Dick’s barely-veiled threat, Tim simply nodded his head.

“That’s _ exactly _ what I was hoping for, Mr. Grayson. For you to _ do _ something.”

Dick stiffened when Tim dug inside his jacket, but he only pulled out a phone. He tapped on the screen a few times and scrolled down before handing it over to Dick.

“Watch,” he said simply.

It was a video. It was grainy and shit quality at best, but it was still clear enough that Dick could make out the sight of Batman beating up what looked like a random thug. It wasn’t anything Dick hadn’t seen with his own eyes before, at least not until the thug lost consciousness and Batman still kept going at him.

He was still gripping the thug high, raining his fist down against the man’s lolling head without pause or hesitation, and Dick frowned deeply. There was blood by then, dribbling out of the thug’s nose and the corner of his mouth. If Batman didn’t stop soon-

The sound of distant sirens sounded from the video, and Batman _ finally _ stopped and dropped the thug on the ground. He didn’t even look down at the motionless body, just strode away until he disappeared into the shadows. The video stopped soon after.

“That was two days ago,” Tim told Dick in a grim tone. “A mugger, in Coventry. If the victim hadn’t called the police, he probably- he might not have stopped. Batman could’ve killed him. The mugger’s in Gotham General now, but doctors said he might never be able to chew solid food for the rest of his life.”

Tim took the phone from him. Dick couldn’t bring himself to meet his eyes.

“Batman needs a Robin, Mr. Grayson,” Tim said. “He needs _ you_.”

\---

First on Dick’s agenda was getting Tim to stop calling him ‘Mr. Grayson’. No one _ ever _ called him _ Mr. Grayson_, and it made him feel and sound old.

Next was getting the kid home, but that proved to be a bigger challenge. Tim stubbornly refused to let Dick talk to Bruce alone, no matter what Dick said. He was so- _ invested _ in Batman, Dick found it equally frustrating and endearing.

In the end, he drove them both to the manor, and Alfred greeted them at the door with a skeptical look at Dick’s little tag-along.

“Master Richard,” he said. “What a pleasant, unexpected surprise. I’ll put the kettle on.”

“Thanks Alf,” Dick said, ushering Tim into the kitchen after the old man. “Tim, this is Alfred Pennyworth. He’s the man of the house. Alfred, this is Timothy. He’s something of a genius.”

“Dare I ask?”

“Maybe later. Is Bruce back from patrol?”

Alfred gave him a pointed look, to which Dick just shrugged and pointed at Tim with a wry, “Genius. He knows.”

Tim blushed shyly, blissfully unaware of the tension pulling Dick’s spine taut. “He’s exaggerating,” he said. “But I _ do _ know.”

“Yes, we’re all familiar with Master Richard’s fondness for theatrics. Take a seat, Master Timothy.”

“Please just call me Tim.”

“Of course, Master Timothy.”

Dick leaned down and whispered into Tim’s ear, “Don’t bother, I’ve been trying for years.” Tim blushed darker, and Dick made to leave the kitchen. “I need to talk to Bruce. Look after the kid for me.”

“This isn’t a daycare, Master Richard.”

“Love you too, Alf.”

Tim grabbed Dick’s arm before he could get far, and he looked worried now. “You said you’d let me come with you.”

Dick was too tired for pleasantries. He pulled Tim’s hand off his arm and bluntly told him, “He might get violent when he hears what I have to say. You know how unstable he is, Tim. There’s a chance I won’t be able to stop him from hurting you.”

Tim’s shock only strengthened Dick’s resolve, and Dick left without another word.

The Batcave hadn’t changed at all since the last time Dick had been in there. He stopped for a moment in front of Jason’s Robin suit, touching the glass briefly, and prayed for patience before he continued on towards the Batcomputer.

Surprisingly, Bruce wasn’t there. But the screens were still running scans, and the chair had been disturbed. Dick waited.

Bruce knew he was there. Dick hadn’t turned off his tracker after all; he must’ve pinged the computer the moment he was in Gotham. So when five minutes passed and Bruce was still nowhere to be seen, Dick knew the man was testing him on purpose.

The worst part was that it was working. Dick felt the anger and resentment building up inside him for the past half year quickly rising to the surface, and he _ let _ it. He _ wanted _ to be angry. He _ needed _ to be angry for this.

“Bruce!” he bellowed, after another minute had passed. “I’m not in the mood for your bullshit! We need to talk! _ Now._”

“I’m busy.”

Dick would be lying if he said he hadn’t been startled by the sudden proximity of that deep voice behind him, but no one would know anyway. He turned on his feet and glared at Batman.

He wasn’t wearing his cowl, which made the dark bags under his eyes more pronounced. He looked haggard, in a way that Dick had never seen him before, and if it weren’t for the familiar steel of his blue eyes or the disapproving purse of his lips, Dick would’ve found it hard to recognize him.

“There’s a kid upstairs telling me that you’ve been going around beating people half to death and leaving them permanently disabled,” Dick snapped. “_Un _-busy yourself.”

“Timothy Jackson Drake. He’s figured out who Batman is. You should have handled it.”

“_Handled it_? Are you- what the hell is wrong with you, Bruce!”

“I need to get back to work.”

“What you _ need _ is to stop. Stop this- this _ warpath _ you’re going on! You’re scaring people, _ innocent _ people. _ Superman _ is scared for you!”

“Go back to the Titans, Dick. I am not having this conversation with you.”

“Then have it with someone else! _ Anyone _ else. You think I _ want _ to be here right now, in this glorified tomb? I used to want to stay Bruce, for you. But _ you _ pushed _ me _ out of your life, and now Batman’s throwing a tantrum because _ you _ can’t deal with your own goddamn feelings. I can’t let you do this to yourself.”

“I’m not doing any-”

“I _ know _ what happened in Arkham.”

“... Who-”

“Did you seriously think Gordon wouldn’t reach out to me after you tried to _ kill the Joker_? Give the man some credit, Bruce. He knows a corrupt bastard when he sees one.”

“I left him alive.”

“_Barely_. And you’re not even sorry, are you? God, Bruce. What are you _ doing_? Trying to kill him, doing this, all this vengeance bullshit. None of it is going to bring Jaso-”

“_Get out_.”

“No. You _ listen _ to me for once, Bruce-”

“I said, _ out_!”

“Stop pushing me-”

_ SMACK_.

It was a wide, open-palmed, honest-to-god bitch slap and if Dick’s jaw wasn’t aching at the force of the impact, he might have burst out laughing at it.

He’d expected Bruce to get _ physical_, just like he’d warned Tim, but the actual reality of Bruce being willing to lay a hand on him was- he wasn’t going to lie, it _ stung_. Worse than the actual slap itself. It pissed Dick off, too.

Growling, Dick threw himself at Bruce. Bruce wasn’t expecting it, always one to overestimate the amount of bullshit Dick was willing to put up with. His oversight and Dick’s momentum sent them both crashing to the ground, and Dick rolled them over and twisted until he had Bruce pinned, face down.

Bruce tried to dislodge him but Dick grabbed a fistful of Bruce’s hair and slammed his head against the floor hard enough to stun him. It gave Dick enough time to tear Bruce’s cowl completely off, but before he could do anything, Bruce bucked, throwing Dick off of him and to the side.

Dick rolled onto his feet, ducking when he saw a fist swinging for his head. Too late, he realized that Bruce had done that on purpose, because he was ready to kick Dick’s legs out from under him and Dick’s crouch was too awkward for him to roll out of the way again in time.

He ended up on his back, and Bruce pinned him there with a foot to his chest. In his Nightwing suit, it would’ve felt like little more than a heavy book, but in just his normal civilian clothes, Bruce’s boot felt like a steamroller driving over his lungs.

Dick gasped and choked for air, scrabbling at Bruce’s foot to get it off of him. Bruce didn’t even budge, and Dick raised the cowl in his hand up to his lips.

“Alfred,” Dick choked out, coughing with the effort. “Antidote- fear gas- _ nguh_-”

Bruce ground his foot down, and Dick’s eyes rolled up into the back of his head from the pain, the sound of his own ribs cracking exploding like fireworks in his ears. He couldn’t breathe at all anymore, and he could feel himself losing consciousness quickly from shock as his fingers loosened and he dropped the cowl.

“_Bru_\- _ uce_-”

\---

Dick woke up to Bruce’s familiar scent, so heavily tinged with guilt and concern that it made Dick’s already aching head throb a little bit worse.

“Tone it down, you’re suffocating me,” Dick joked as he opened his eyes.

Bruce didn’t laugh. He still looked haggard, tired and worn out, but his eyes looked haunted now too. He looked like he was seeing a ghost as he stared at Dick.

“How did you know?” he asked, leaning forward in the chair by the bed Dick was lying in.

“The Batcomputer. I recognized the scans for Scarecrow's gas. What happened, Bruce?”

Bruce exhaled, burying his face in his hands. “There have been a series of controlled attacks for the past three weeks. The victims involved claimed that they were being attacked and were fighting for their lives, but in reality, they were fighting each other.”

“The gas was making them violent?”

“The fear it induced was. Whatever Scarecrow’s done to his gas, it makes the victims hallucinate more elaborately now.”

“Please tell me you took him down.”

“He's been in hiding. But it's only a matter of time before we make his runners talk.”

Dick sat up, with some difficulty. His ribs were probably broken in at least two places, and it still stung to breathe. Bruce noticed, moving quickly to kneel by the bed and help him up.

“I’m fine,” Dick said, waving him away. “Nothing fatal.”

Bruce hovered, his guilt in the air thickening. “I could have killed you,” he said. “I would have.”

Dick glared at him sharply. “But you _ didn’t_.”

Bruce pursed his lips, shaking his head. “Why did you antagonize me when you knew I was gassed?”

“You said three weeks ago, that’s when Scarecrow’s attacks started. Batman’s been more violent a lot longer than that, hasn’t he?” Dick reached up, cupping Bruce’s cheek and staring into his darkened eyes. “Bruce. Everything I said, everything _ you _ said. That was all true, gas or not.”

Dick saw Bruce’s jaw clench unhappily, but at least he didn’t move away. Dick smiled weakly, shifting on the bed until he had his legs over the edge, flanking’s Bruce’s hips. He looped his arms around Bruce’s waist and rested his head against the man’s solid chest.

“What did you see, when you looked at me?” he asked softly.

Bruce didn’t answer immediately. He didn’t even move, and Dick could hear his heart rate picking up through his thin shirt.

“I saw Jason.” There was a minute tremor in his voice when he finally spoke. Dick felt warm, familiar hands resting on his back, reaching up to card fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. “But I heard your voice.”

Dick closed his eyes and focused on Bruce’s touch. “Clark came to see me,” he said. “He was worried about you. I think they all are. When’s the last time you saw any of them, Bruce? If not as Batman, then as Bruce Wayne.”

The fingers stilled. “Five months ago,” he heard Bruce say, eerily calm. “Since you left.”

“Even Hal?”

“... He’s come to see Alfred.”

Dick tightened his arms around Bruce. “I can’t stay here, Bruce,” he said quietly. “I wish I could, but I _ can’t_. And you can’t keep isolating yourself from everyone.”

“I’ve done it before.”

Dick choked out a laugh. “And look how that turned out,” he said bitterly, pulling away to look up at his mentor. Bruce looked so much more tired than before. “There’s a kid out there that thinks you’re a god-given gift to mankind. I’m not expecting you to be thrilled at the idea, but give him a chance.”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “You want me to take him in?” he said flatly.

“I can’t be your Robin anymore. But you can’t be alone either. Train him, test him. Let him prove himself. And if he fails, I’ll come back for good.”

“... On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“I want _ you _to train him.”

“That easy? You really don’t think he’s cut out for it, do you.”

“I’m giving him a _ chance_. If he’s uncovered our identities on his own, I’m sure he’ll surprise us.”

“Fine. It’s a deal then.”

\---

Dick smiled briefly without looking away from the computer screen and the footage of Tim practising in the Batcave. 

Tim’s footing was still a little off, even after the many times Dick’s had to remind him - painfully - how important always keeping his balance was, but his katas were otherwise perfect. Perfectly timed, perfectly aimed. He was probably better at it than Dick, in fact; Dick’s form had never been so disciplined.

Tim wasn’t as fast as Jason had been, or even half as vicious with his attacks, but Dick didn’t think anyone was quite like Jason anyway.

It had been six months since Tim had first approached him at the hotel, and Dick thought that Tim had more than proven himself worthy of the Robin mantel.

Tim was sharp, and quick-witted. Dick personally thought he was cleverer than even Bruce, sometimes - although he would never say that to the kid; Tim still thought Batman hung the moon in the sky and the hero worship was too cute to disenchant him of - and it was about time Bruce admitted that he was wrong to ever doubt the kid in the first place.

That day marked the sixteenth time since Bruce had started bringing Tim out on patrol with him, and Dick wasn’t there to gloat, but he couldn’t help feeling smug that it was another successful night of the two of them returning with barely a scratch to attend to.

Dick hadn’t been back in a month, not since Tim had first started patrolling with Bruce, so it was a shock to him when Tim jumped out of the Batmobile after it pulled up and Dick saw the very distinct difference in the kid’s appearance.

“What happened to your _ hair_?”

Tim blushed brightly at the question, freezing next to the Batmobile, while Bruce made a beeline for the Batcomputer without even a glance at Dick.

“It caught on fire.” Tim gestured at the hood folded over his shoulders, pulling off his mask at the same time. “Hence the new addition to the uniform.”

Dick had to stifle an incredulous laugh at the explanation, not wanting to embarrass Tim any further, and beckoned him for a hug instead. Tim rolled his eyes, but humoured him anyway.

“How’ve you been?” he asked when they pulled apart.

“I’ve still got all _ my _ hair, so better than you, I guess.” Dick _ did _ laugh at the stink-eye Tim gave him for the joke. “I’m _ kidding_, jeez. I thought Bruce was the only one with a stick up his-”

“Dick.”

Dick shared an exasperated look with Tim at the obvious summons before clapping the kid’s shoulder amicably. “We’ll catch up later,” he promises.

“Sure thing.”

Bruce was reading something on the computer when Dick approached him, leaning up against the edge of the table by Bruce’s side.

“Can I say I told you so first?” he asked. “Because I definitely told you, didn’t I?”

Bruce didn’t deign to respond, and Dick noticed that he was actually breathing a little louder than usual. Frowning, Dick touched Bruce’s shoulder tentatively, surprised when Bruce didn’t shrug him off.

“Are you hurt?”

“It’s nothing.”

Dick wasn’t surprised at Bruce’s dismissive tone, and was ready to push to find out what was wrong with him when Bruce gestures at the computer.

“There’s something I wanted you to see,” he said. “What does that look like to you?”

It was a grainy photo of a dark alley, with a timestamp in the corner from a surveillance camera. There was a figure standing close against one wall of the narrow lane, its face partially hidden under a black hood.

At first, Dick wasn’t sure what Bruce was expecting him to say about it, but then he realized that there was something familiar about the uncovered portion of that face in the picture. In fact, there was something _ very _ familiar about that irritable frown.

“That kid looks like _ you_,” Dick marvelled, looking back at Bruce. “Jesus, Bruce, is this what I think this is? And after you made a huge deal about using protection-”

“This is serious, Dick,” Bruce cut him off, glaring for a moment before his features settled into something more neutral. “This image is from a week ago, from a CCTV of an ATM across from Divinity Church.”

“Wait, so you don’t know who the kid is?”

“I have a theory but he’s proven himself to be very elusive.”

Bruce closed the image, pulling up another one instead. This time, it’s clear who the person in it is; Talia al Ghul, striding down the sidewalk near the Gotham City Bank in the middle of broad daylight.

“Talia’s been spotted in the city recently as well,” Bruce explained. “She seems to be alone but with Ra’s, that could mean anything.”

“What’re you trying to say, Bruce?” Dick frowned again, staring at Bruce. “Is- did you and Talia have a _ kid _together?”

Bruce actually flinched at that, and Dick immediately knew something was _ wrong_. 

“B, did she _ do _ something to you?”

Bruce’s expression didn’t change, but his whole body had tensed up, and Dick knew that if it weren’t for the scent blockers in the suit, he’d probably be getting a noseful of Bruce’s spiked scent. The implications honestly terrified Dick, but at the same time, he couldn’t help feeling a sense of solidarity with his ex-mentor.

It was a scary thought that something like _ that _ could happen to _ Bruce _of all people, but it was also- Dick felt awful for even thinking it, but he felt relieved too. 

He wasn’t the only one that had- that someone had taken advantage of.

He wasn’t the only one that had been weak.

“It’s possible the last time I was in contact with Talia that she might have conceived,” Bruce said, quiet and mechanical. “Neither of us were on our cycles, but she used something on me that might have negatively affected my birth control.”

It was such a Bruce thing to do, to talk about it like it had been nothing, like he was just reciting lines from any other mission report he’d written up.

Dick didn’t know what else to do besides whisper, “I’m so sorry, Bruce.”

Bruce looked away from him. “She preyed on my weaknesses. Something I won’t allow to happen again.”

Dick wanted to reach out and hug him, to apologize again for what Talia had done - for thinking the thoughts he’d been thinking about - but he knew Bruce wouldn’t appreciate it. Not right now.

Bruce had shown him the kid’s photo for a reason, had told Dick about this because he wanted Dick’s help with something. Dick tried to push away his own feelings and focus.

Something about it all didn’t add up; the kid in the picture looked at least _ nine _ years old, and Dick knew that the last time Bruce had met Talia had been more recent. How could she have kept the kid a secret for so long, and just allowed him to wander around Gotham only now?

“What do you need me to do, B?”

“I need you to take Tim with you to the Titans.”

And _ that _ was completely unexpected. Even more so than discovering that Bruce and Talia may or may not have had a secret love child all these years, and Dick was sure his expression said that clearly.

But Bruce wasn’t looking at him, and continued calmly, “If the boy is mine and Talia has been raising him with the League, I need to erase all the years of Ra’s’s indoctrination. Having Tim here would only make it more difficult.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Dick blurted. “Tim could _ help _ you, he’s a good enough Robin-”

“He’s not _ you_, Dick,” Bruce snapped, turning to glare at him. “Do I need to remind you how dangerous the League is? He isn’t ready to face them.”

Dick felt anger flare at the condescension in Bruce’s tone, and he instinctively glared right back. 

“Or _ you’re _ not ready to _ let _ him face them,” he said harshly. “How many times do I have to tell you, Bruce? You don’t have to do this alone, and I’m not coming back to play your sidekick again. What’s the point of having a Robin when you keep him caged all the damn time? He’s not _ Jason_, Bruce. So stop treating him like he’s going to die the second you take your eyes off of him.”

It was too much, and Dick knew it the second the last of his words had left his mouth, but it wasn’t like Dick could take them back. A part of him didn’t _ want _ to take them back. They both knew he was right. 

Dick didn’t blame Bruce for worrying that Tim might meet the same terrible fate as Jason, but Bruce had already gone off the deep end once, left to his own devices.

And Tim _ was _ a good Robin, maybe better even than his predecessors. He was distinctly more Bruce-like than any of them, sans the emotional stuntedness, and Dick knew Bruce would see that if the man would just stop trying so hard to control everything and everyone around him all the time.

To his shock, Bruce _ didn’t _ get angry at what Dick had said. In fact, his glare softened, and he took a deep breath before he sat down heavily in the chair in front of the computer. He leaned his elbows on his knees, dropping forward until his head was hanging low over his lap.

“You’re right,” he said, so quiet that Dick almost didn’t hear him. “You’re right. Every time I look at him, all I see is Jason. All I see is a reminder of my greatest failure. There’s only so much I can prepare him for, that you can train him to fight against. But we both know it’s different in a controlled environment. Out there, with monsters like Ra’s and Bane; how do I know I won’t make another mistake that will end up killing him?”

It was the first time in a long time since Bruce had sounded so _ honest _with Dick, and Dick moved closer to Bruce, dropping down to his knees by Bruce’s legs, and resting a hand gently on his arm, until Bruce raised his head high enough to look into Dick’s eyes. 

“He’s not Jason, Bruce,” Dick repeated, squeezing his arm. “And no matter what you might think, none of your mistakes are responsible for anyone’s death. That’s on the Joker, on Ra’s and Penguin. _ They _ kill people, not _ you_. You need to trust Tim to take care of himself the way you trust me. Take a leap of faith, Bruce.”

Bruce stared into Dick’s eyes, the corners of his lips lifting slightly in a despondent smile. “You’re different, Dick,” he said. “You always were. Despite what _ you _ might think, I’ve never thought of you as my sidekick.”

Dick smiled back at him. “More like a pain in your ass, right?”

Bruce chuckled quietly, but they were interrupted when footsteps approached from the entrance to the manor.

“I’m sorry to intrude, sirs,” Alfred greeted. “But Commissioner Gordon called, Master Bruce.”

Bruce sighed, nodding. “What happened?”

“The mayor is about to declare martial law on Gotham City.”


	7. Chapter 7

Jason wakes up feeling disoriented.

For a moment, he doesn’t remember where he is, or what he’d been doing before he’d fallen asleep. He doesn’t remember anything, nothing but a rush of fury, vengeance and pure, unadulterated pleasure. 

_ Wot the hell are _ you _ doin’ ‘ere, boy? Looking for yer daddy? _

Jason winces as flashes of disjointed images run through his mind, accompanied by a throbbing pain slicing through the back of his head. He sits up in bed with a groan, pressing his palms against his closed lids as if the act could somehow force the pain away.

**_Oh_**_,_ **_he’s_** **_bleeding, isn’t that just wonderful_**_?_**_ I’ve always thought he looked better in red_**_,_**_ don’t you agree_**_,_**_ kiddo_**_?_

He can faintly make out the awful sound of a familiar, mocking laugh, but it’s not as muted as he’s used to it being. He’s no stranger to the Joker, not when he _ still _ sees and hears the bastard everywhere if he looks closely enough, but this is- it’s _ real_, more real than Jason’s ever dreamt it and-

_ Fuckfuck! A’right, ye’ve made yer point! _ STOP_! Christ, mercy please! _

Why the hell is fucking _ Penguin _ in his head, too?

“Stop it,” Jason growls under his breath, hunching over until his forehead’s practically resting against his knees. “Shut the fuck up!”

It doesn’t help. The images have stopped, but Jason’s staring through his lids and at his hands, his _blood-drenched hands_, _clutching the knife Slade had given him_, _and that’s bloody_ _too_, fuck_, why is there so much blood_-

_ The Penguin’s still moving, dragging himself behind his desk with his one hand. He can’t walk because his kneecaps are broken, but he still has the one arm and he’s desperate to _ not die_. _

_ It’s a futile effort. He’s already lost too much blood and they both know it. _

_ Even if he somehow manages to survive this, both his ears have been torn off, and it would take nothing short of a deal with the devil for him to ever walk again. He’s crippled and weak. Penguin’s pride won’t let him live with that. _

_ Jason follows behind him at a leisurely pace, twirling the knife between his fingers by its hilt. _

_ “_**_You wanna hear a joke_**_, _ ** _ Ozzy_**_?” he asks casually. _

_ Penguin doesn’t answer. He’s under the window now, the one behind his desk. He’s reached up, clutching at the sill, blind and desperate. He’s babbling wordlessly, and the saliva from his lips mingle disgustingly with his own blood as it streams down his fat chin. _

_ “_**_My mistake_**_, _ ** _ I forgot you can’t talk anymore_**_, _ ** _can you_**_?” Jason chuckles, stepping carefully until he’s standing with one foot on either side of Cobblepot’s useless left leg. He kicks it lightly, and Cobblepot doesn’t even react. “_**_C’mon_**_, _ ** _ Ozzy_**_._**_Humour me_**_._**_What do you call a bat that won’t fly_**_?__” _

_ Jason crouches down, and pokes the tip of the knife against Cobblepot’s leg under him. It tears easily through the fabric of Cobblepot’s pants, and stains it red with the blood on the blade. Jason watches the white bleed, and then looks up at Cobblepot. _

_ He’s shaking, so badly that his hand on the sill isn’t even touching it anymore, just hovering there like an annoying fly. _

_ “_**_Not gonna guess_ ** _?” _

_ Jason shoves his knife into Cobblepot’s leg, as far as it can go, and Cobblepot’s mouth drops open in a silent scream, baring his stump of a tongue and the tattered remains of his voice box. _

_ “_**_What a buzzkill_**_. _ ** _ Looks like I’ll have to answer my own question_**_, _ ** _huh_**_?” _

_ Jason twists his knife before dragging it out, and he studies the fresh coat of blood on it curiously before wiping it clean on Cobblepot’s pants. He sheathes it, and draws his gun instead. _

_ He checks the cartridge, clicks the safety off. Weighs it in his hand before he shuffles closer to Cobblepot. He nudges the barrel under Cobblepot’s chin, forcing the man to tilt his head until he’s facing Jason. Sort of. _

_ Jason withdraws and takes aim. “_**_What do you call a bat that won’t fly_**_?__” he asks again, smiling. He waits a second before he says, “_**_A deadbat_**_! _ ** _ Ahahahaha_**_!” _

_ No one hears the shot - or the hysterical laughter that follows it - no one except Jason, thanks to the silencer. No one hears the joke either, which is a shame, because Jason thinks it’s pretty funny. _

** _Bah_**_, _ ** _tough crowd_**_. _ **I** ** _ think you were doing swell_**_, _ ** _birdboy_**_. _ ** _You’re really living up to that scar_**_, _ ** _heh_**_. _ ** _Why don’t we have _ ** **more** ** _ fun_**_, _ ** _hmm_**_? _

Jason’s struggling to breathe, his chest constricting as he _ remembers_. Every single vivid detail, every pitch of the Penguin’s screams, every ugly whisper of the Joker in Jason’s ears; urging him on, _ encouraging _ him.

Jason feels sick.

He’s killed before, tortured and murdered the criminal scum of society in cold blood. Nothing he’d done to Cobblepot - not even after the bastard had been dead - is new. He’s done worse, really, so much worse in Venezuela. Just to prove a point.

But this is different. This time hadn’t been _ Jason_, no. Not _ all _Jason.

Cobblepot’s death had been_ the_ _ Joker_.

** _Aw_**_, _ ** _you say that like it’s a bad thing_**_. _ ** _Don’t you miss me_**_,_**_ Jay-Jay_**_? _ ** _Because _ ** **I ** ** _do_**_. _ ** _I’ve missed _ ** **all** ** _ of you_**_, _ ** _ ahahahaha_**-

“SHUT UP!” Jason screams, jumping off of the bed. He reaches under the bed frantically, grabbing the gun that’s strapped there, and scrambles to his feet, aiming at- _ nothing_.

The room is empty, except for him. There’s absolutely nothing and no one else there with him, and yet-

** _What do you think we should do next_**_? _ ** _I’ve always wanted to see what dear old Croc looks like inside out_**_. _ ** _How about it_**_, _ ** _kiddo_**_? _ ** _What say you and Uncle J put together our own little zoo_**_? _

“I said _ SHUT UP_!”

The gunshots should sound deafening in the confined space, but all Jason hears as he empties his gun into the walls around him is the Joker’s damning laughter, resounding through the room. Just _ laughing _ at him, terrible and insane and as grating as he remembers.

It’s not _ real_, he _ knows _ it’s not, but it won’t stop, none of the voices are stopping and Jason throws the emptied gun to the side and grabs the lamp from the side table. He throws it against the wall with three bullets embedded into the concrete, shouting with frustration.

_ Still _ the Joker keeps _ laughing _ and _ laughing _ and Jason drops to his knees, covering his ears with his hands.

**_Are you going to tear those off_** **_too like you did to old Penguin_**_? _**_Because that would be such a _****shame**_. _**_I’ve always liked your ears_**_,_**_ you know_**_? _**_Very batty_**_._

“What the fuck is going on?” Jason grinds out, shaking his head. “What the fuck are you?”

** _Oh_**_, **how rude of **_**_me_**_! _ ** _Did I forget to introduce myself_**_? _

Maybe Jason _ is _ going crazy. Maybe he’s crazier than he’d ever thought, because _ there_, in the corner of the room. He _ sees _ him, a vague, translucent shadow of purple and green, and he’s _ waving at Jason_. Fucking _ waving_.

** _I’m _ ** **you**_, _ ** _Jason_**_, _ the Joker says, and even unclear, even incorporeal, the grin he bares at Jason screams of madness. ** _Uncle J’s here to keep you company so you’re _ ** **neeeeever** ** _ alone again_**_! _

Jason stares, his hands dropping down into his lap. He can’t do anything but stare because- what _ is _ there for him to do? He’s- this _ isn’t _ normal.

Jason’s always had _ issues_, always had those goddamn voices that have been following him around since he’d crawled up from the depths of Ra’s al Ghul’s Lazarus Pit, since he’d clawed through the demons teeming in the clutches of death. _ Those _ demons, Jason knows.

But this isn’t- Jason dreams of the Joker, a lot more than he’d like to admit, but not like _ this_. _ Never _ like this.

This is pure insanity, like the kind that he _ does not suffer from_. Jason has _ issues _ but he is _ not fucking crazy_. He _ can’t _ be crazy. He’s been through too much to allow himself to break like that.

Blankly, he watches the semi-formed apparition of the Joker meander across the room, poking his- _ its _ fingers in places that they shouldn’t be, and then it stops in front of the window, peering behind the blinds. It gets excited then.

**_Hey look_**_, _**_goldie’s here_**_! _**_Must’ve been worried for you_**_, _**_kiddo_**_. _**_You looked like death_** **_after all_**_. _**_HAHAHA_**_. _**_GET IT_**_? _**_‘Coz you were DEAD_**_!_

Jason has a brief moment to wonder why the hell the Joker knows that’s what Jason calls Dick sometimes before he hears the window click and slide open, and then a familiar leg slips inside from under the blinds, followed quickly by the rest of Dick Grayson.

“Jason?” Dick smiles tentatively when he catches sight of Jason, half-dressed and standing ready in a defensive stance in the middle of the room, but then the smile drops as he _ really _ looks around. “What the hell happened in here?”

The Joker apparition seems to fade until it’s barely a glimmer of colour against the wall next to the window, but it’s still clear enough that it makes Jason’s hackles rise when it tilts its head and leers at Dick’s ass.

**_Woo-boy_**_, _**_I guess I got the wrong bird_**_, _**_didn’t I_**_? _**_Don’t get me wrong_**_! _**_You weren’t too bad yourself_** **_kiddo_**_, _**_but I can definitely see what all the hype is about_**_._

“Get the fuck away from him!” Jason yells, stomping towards the Joker.

It snickers, and Jason sidesteps a shocked Dick to swipe a fist at it. It flickers in the air before it disappears, the sound of its laughter echoing even once it’s gone, making Jason’s skin crawl with irritation.

“Jason, who are you talking to?”

Dick sounds wary now, almost cautious, and Jason inhales deeply, glaring at the space where the Joker had been standing. There’s really not a trace of him- of it there, not even footprints in the carpet where it had been standing. Jason shuts his eyes and takes in another deep breath before he turns around to face Dick.

“What do you want.” 

He needs to figure this shit out, needs to find out what it was that he’d just seen. He needs to know if it’s going to happen again. He can’t do any of that if Dick sticks around.

Dick’s expression is obscured by his mask, but Jason knows him well enough to know there’s concern there. _ Unwanted _ concern.

“We need to talk,” Dick says.

“Did you hit your head?” Jason asks.

Dick’s brows furrow with obvious confusion. “What?”

“Did you. Hit your head?”

“...No?”

“Because you obviously forgot when I said before; _ there’s nothing to talk about_.”

“_Jason_.”

Dick makes a frustrated sound and moves towards him, but Jason backs up, holding a warning hand up and shooting Dick a glare.

“Get out of here, Dick,” he snaps. “I don’t need Batman coming up here in my business just because his favourite kid couldn’t stay away from my cock.”

“That’s not why I’m here!” Dick sputters, having the gall to look scandalized at Jason’s claim. 

Jason’s glare flattens to an unimpressed stare, which seems to frustrate Dick even more.

“You know what, fine!” Dick throws his arms out, glaring at Jason. “You want Batman to come here and arrest you himself, be my guest! But at least tell me _ why _ you did it.”

Arrest him. _ Shit_. It can’t be about anything other than the Penguin. He’d thought he would have more time, at least.

“Arrest me for what?” Jason sneers, feigning ignorance. “For fucking his golden boy before he could do it himself?”

Dick’s glare seems to harden for a split moment before something like realization dawns on him, and his lips part slightly to let out a soft ‘oh’. 

“You’re _ trying _ to piss me off,” Dick says slowly, crossing his arms over his chest. “You _ want _ me angry so that I’ll leave.”

_ God damn it_,_ goldie_. “Don’t think so highly of yourself, not everything’s about _ you_-”

“No, no, you don’t get to do that, Jason. Don’t _ deflect_. I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Go run back home to daddy and leave me the fuck alone.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, you _ marked _ me, Jason. You don’t get to ask me to leave you alone.”

“You were pretty much begging for it though, weren’t you?”

“You wanted it just as much, _ alpha_.”

Jason growls, low and angry, and Dick growls right back, his lips drawing back to bare his canines. Instinct tells Jason to back down; this is his _ mate_. They shouldn’t be fighting, not like this. 

But he _ really _ needs to get to the bottom of the Joker ghost that had been in his room not ten minutes ago, and until he can do that, he needs to keep it away from Dick.

(Jason’s lost enough to the Joker. He refuses to lose anything else.)

“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have rolled over for any fucking knothead that passed by you that night,” he sneers, trying not to think too hard on it, trying not to get angry at his own words. 

(He doesn’t _ want _to say these things. Maybe if you’d asked him a week ago, he wouldn’t have minded so much, would’ve probably loved getting under Dick’s skin just to get a reaction out of him. 

But a week ago, Jason hadn’t fucked Dick, hadn’t marked him as his own. A week ago, Jason had still been minding his own goddamn business, not trying to get into Bruce’s good graces, but not particularly trying to piss him off either.

A week go, Jason hadn’t thought he’d have a snowball’s chance in hell to actually get something he wants for once in his fucking life, and that makes all the difference in the world.)

** _Aw_**_, _ ** _I don’t think he likes that too much_**_, _ ** _ sonny-boy_**_. _

Jason can see Dick’s jaw clenching tightly, his temper flaring. If he weren’t wearing blockers, Jason’s sure Dick’s furious scent would be sending Jason curling into a mess of grudging regret by now. It’s almost like the old days again, those times when Jason would push too far, would genuinely piss Dick off instead of simply annoy him.

He mentally braces himself for the verbal onslaught that’s sure to come, but this time, Jason’s overestimated Dick’s level of self-control.

Instead of a rebuke, Dick lunges at him, moving faster than Jason had thought he’s capable of. He’s a blur of black and blue before he’s a solid weight dropping on Jason, and Jason’s too shocked to react immediately.

He falls to the floor on his back with a grunt, Dick straddling his waist, and Dick’s grabbing Jason’s shoulder with one hand as he throws a hard punch into Jason’s jaw with another. The impact stuns Jason for a split second, but he recovers faster once his brain catches up to the fact that he’s in a fight.

As Dick pulls back his fist to throw another punch, Jason grabs Dick’s wrist halfway, and he flips them over and crowds Dick against the floor, using the grip Dick still has on Jason’s shoulder to his advantage. 

He bears down his whole weight against Dick, trapping Dick’s arm between their chests, and pins Dick’s other hand down next to his head. Dick growls angrily, squirming under him, his fingers on Jason’s shoulder tightening to the point of pain. 

Dick bucks, trying to dislodge Jason, and when that doesn’t work, he wraps his legs around Jason’s hips, digging his heels into the small of Jason’s back.

“Get off me,” he snarls, and Jason winces as his tailbone aches under the pressure from Dick’s feet.

“So now you want to leave?” Jason grips Dick’s wrist tighter in retaliation. “What happened to wanting to talk?”

Even through the white lenses of the domino, Jason can feel the venom of Dick’s glare.

“The offer expired,” he sneers, craning his head back against the floor before he butts their foreheads together harshly.

Jason yelps as pain explodes between his eyes, and he pulls back from Dick instinctively. Dick uses the chance to throw Jason off, and rolls to the side as Jason clutches at his aching temples. Jason staggers to his feet, but something slams against the side of his head, and he drops back down to his knees with a grunt.

“You want a fight, Hood?” he hears Dick hiss. “Wanna talk about who’s fucked who?” 

Another kick against the side of Jason’s head and Jason’s sprawling across the floor, his vision blacking out. He pushes himself up, trying to get himself together, but Dick kicks him again in the side, right on his healing ribs, and Jason gasps as the pain paralyzes him and he falls again.

** _Yikes_**_! _ ** _He’s almost as nasty as you_**_, _ ** _kiddo_**_. _ ** _No wonder you like him_**_. _

“How’s Slade doing in Blackgate? I heard he didn’t take it too well when you refused to go visit him. Guess he wasn’t that great of a lay, huh?”

Dick plants a foot down against Jason’s shoulder and grinds down on it, eliciting a gasp from Jason. 

“And what about Scarecrow? He practically foams at the mouth whenever he hears anyone mention the Arkham Knight. And Talia? Oh that’s right. _ She’s _dead isn’t she?”

Dick removes his foot, and Jason just barely registers him crouching down by Jason’s head. It takes effort, but Jason manages to breathe through the pain, and his vision focuses and he cranes his neck to look up at Dick staring down at him impassively.

“Seems like everyone you’ve slept with ends up dead or behind bars,” Dick says flatly. “Did you kill the Penguin because you fucked him too, Jason? Or did he share you with his friends, the party-favour alpha everyone wants to fuck but nobody wants to keep?”

It’s foolish to get angry about what Dick is saying when Jason had thrown pretty much the same insult at him just moments ago. But he _ does _ get angry. 

He’s angry at Dick’s holier-than-thou attitude, at how he makes it sound like Jason sleeping with Slade and Crane and Talia had been any different than Dick sleeping with- with all those other people that Jason knows Dick’s slept with. Hell, Dick’s slept with _ more _ than Jason ever had, and Jason knows Dick’s been with Slade too, at least once.

How fucking dare the self-righteous asshole stand there and sneer down his uppity nose at Jason about it.

(How fucking dare he belittle the times that Jason’s slept with those bastards out of necessity and not want.)

** _You’re not gonna cry_**_, _ ** _are ya_**_? _ ** _ I thought we beat that nasty little habit outta ya_**_. _

Jason chokes out a laugh in between his wheezing gasps for air, and Dick frowns down at him.

“Last I checked, I wasn’t the one that got fucked by the Penguin,” Jason rasps. “But then again, he didn’t get very far with you, did he, Dick? I wonder what daddy would say if he knew his favourite kid had been _ begging _ for Cobblepot to touch him.”

Dick’s frown deepens, and for a moment he looks utterly confused. But then his expression shutters and Jason knows he remembers.

Jason swallows down the guilt that threatens to force an apology from his lips, hoping instead that he’s pissed Dick off enough to get him to fucking leave - even if a part of Jason regrets it, doesn’t _ want _ Dick to be anywhere but right there, with him. 

But then Jason sees the corners of Dick’s lips twitch, until they’re lifting up in a smile that he seems to be trying to fight down.

He’s started shaking, his shoulders shuddering almost violently, and then it’s full-body. He’s wrapping his arms around his waist, hunching forward a little, and Jason watches with astonishment as Dick starts _ laughing_.

No, not- not laughing. He’s _ giggling_, short little bursts of high-pitched chortles that sound eerily familiar, and Jason stares at him, his body tensing with apprehension.

Dick- he’s bent over nearly in half now, his laughter growing louder by the second. There’s no doubt to the mania in its pitch, and Jason can’t- he’s not sure what’s happening.

After what feels like hours, Dick finally stops, breathing in deeply before he straightens up, standing tall and towering over Jason’s frozen form. He’s grinning widely now, his face- he doesn’t even _ look _ like himself, and Jason can make out thin, greenish veins rising on Dick’s cheeks, his forehead, under the line of his jaw.

“Don’t tell me you’re _ jealous, _ Jay-Jay,” Dick says, and even his voice sounds warped. He shakes his head, feigning disappointment, though the manic grin twisting his lips doesn’t waver. “Now, that just won’t do. You know you’re the only alpha for _ me_, sweetcheeks.”

Jason doesn’t see the kick coming, but he feels it _ acutely _ as Dick’s foot catches on his cheek, and he’s thrown onto his back with the force of it. It’s hard enough that Jason’s vision blacks out, and he still can’t move, can hardly even breathe properly.

“Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason,” he hears Dick say through the haze of pain, hears the footsteps that approach him. 

“_Jason_! You’ve always been my favourite. We had fun times together, didn’t we? _ Didn’t we_? Me with the fucking around, you with all that insecurity wrapped up in your precious little alpha body. _ God, _ you always came crying to me, remember? I loved that, you know? You never looked for Batsy, no. You looked for dear big brother, haha!”

Jason gasps when he feels something pushing down on his ribs, sending more pain shooting through his body.

“Well, now you have him, little bird, all to yourself. **And we’re going to make the world burn together**, ** just you wait**. **Ahahahaha**!”

The pressure on his ribs eases up, but the relief is short-lived because Dick stomps down on the corner of Jason’s temples, and Jason doesn’t even have time to consider how _ fucked _ he is before he loses consciousness.

* * *

The Joker dumped his body in the sewers once he’d lost interest, once he’d convinced Batman that his Robin was dead.

He floated in and out of consciousness, too dead to sink, but alive enough that the filth in the waters reminded him of his open wounds by infecting them, numbing him with ever constant pain.

He wished he _ were _ dead.

He wasn’t sure how long he spent, stuck between piles of garbage and Gotham’s literal scum, in the deepest, darkest corners of the underground systems. Until Talia found him. 

By then, he was near catatonic. He no longer registered any feeling, no longer _ felt _ anything at all. He didn’t even wish for death anymore; he thought he might have already _ been _ dead.

And then she threw him into the Lazarus Pit, and he didn’t- he had no idea _ why_.

(Hadn’t he had enough? Hadn’t he suffered enough? What more could the world want with him, what else could the world hurt him with? Didn’t he deserve any peace?)

The pit offered its own demons to him. He’d wanted to die, but he’d fought instead. Survival instincts, maybe. But whatever the reason, he _ did _ fight; tooth and nail, claw and tail. No matter what monsters or nightmares the pit threw at him, whether they were beasts of hell or green-haired devils, he fought through every single one of them.

He dug his way back to the living, reborn.

Talia trained him, fed him resources and information. Helped him hone his hate, gave him a purpose to fight for. Her only payment was his body and it was nothing, _ nothing _ compared to the promise of sweet revenge on the man that had been instrumental in breaking him. 

And then the Joker _ died_.

The clownfucking son of a knothead _ died_.

It was so fucking _ unfair_. The injustice of it all _ sickened _ him, and he almost, _ almost _ wanted to storm Gotham then and there, burn the whole goddamn city to the ground, make the fucking Bat _ watch _ as he razed every single column, ground every inch of concrete to _ dust_.

But he was nothing if not patient.

It didn’t matter that the demon-clown had died, even if he’d wanted the bastard to die by his hands. No, he would still have revenge on the Bat, and his vengeance would be harsh and _ deliberate_, just like what life had done to _ him_.

He would tear the Bat’s world apart, inch by loving, painful inch.

Starting with the damned city he loved more than he loved _ him_.

* * *

When Jason opens his eyes, the world is oddly quiet.

He’s not used to waking up to silence.

The voices are gone - the fucking _ ghost _ is gone, thank fuck - but he remembers clearly what had happened, and sits up, jumping out of the sofa he’s apparently lying on.

It’s not his safehouse, not the one in Ottisburg, and not any of the others in Gotham. He’d been moved, and he’s not sure to _ where _ or by whom; Dick, or the Joker that had looked like Dick?

Wherever he is, it looks like someone’s sparsely-furnished living room. It’s not that large, and it’s bare except for a sofa, a coffee table and a kitchenette with a narrow counter separating it from the rest of the room. 

There are also thick, metal bars running from the ceiling and into the carpeted floors lining the length of the room, each bar spread apart in two-inch gaps.

Jason has nowhere to go but back to the sofa, not with those bars in the way.

There’s a door in the wall next to the kitchenette, and Jason tenses up, crouching into a fighting stance, when the doorknob turns and it pushes open.

Dick walks out from behind it, water dripping from the tips of his bangs, and he looks- like _ himself _ again, but infinitely tired. He still looks _ sick _ too, but the goddamn grin is gone at least.

He freezes when he sees Jason behind the bars, awake and alert, and his eyes widen comically like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have. But there’s something like relief there too, and Jason watches Dick warily as his ribs decide to ache then, as if to remind him of what Dick had done.

“How- are you in any pain?” Dick asks, and he makes an abortive gesture with his hands, like he’s not quite sure what to do with them.

“Why am I not dead?”

Dick flinches as if Jason had physically hit him, and shrinks against the wall, a look of shame falling on his face.

“I didn’t- I’m sorry, that wasn’t- Jason, I don’t _ want _ to hurt you,” Dick stammers out. “I only came to you to ask about the Penguin, I swear.’

It’s clear that Dick is telling the truth, or at least he _ thinks _ he is. Jason’s not sure what the fuck is going on, but he feels just the tiny bit better to find that Dick doesn’t seem to know either.

“Where are we?” Jason keeps his eyes on Dick, but he moves over to the sofa and sits down, because _ fuck_, his ribs _ do _ still hurt and he’s so fucking _ tired_.

Dick seems to relax as Jason does, and he moves too, going over to the island in the kitchenette and leaning against it. “A safehouse,” he says carefully. “Still in Gotham.”

Jason narrows his eyes at him. “But you won’t tell me where.”

Dick avoids his gaze, looking down at the floor instead. “Does it really matter?” he asks evasively. “Look, just- I need to know, Jason. Why did you kill the Penguin?”

Jason clenches his jaw, glaring at Dick. “_Does it really matter_?” he parrots harshly. “I did it, he’s dead. The why doesn’t change what’s already happened.”

Dick looks up quickly, frowning at him. “It _ does_.” 

He reaches down to his waist, unclips the buckles there on his suit and peels the top up until his torso is bared.

Jason stares at the pattern of ugly, raised veins criss-crossing Dick’s skin, intertwining with the old scars that are already there. Jason thinks he can see them _ glowing_, stark green worms writhing underneath Dick’s tanned skin, and the sight almost makes him nauseous.

“You know about the Joker virus?” Dick asks with a weak, wry smile.

“... You’re infected.”

Dick flinches at the word, even though Jason had said it with no inflection.

“I didn’t realize it,” Dick says quietly, pulling his top back down. “I was- I’ve been having weird flashes, stray thoughts that don’t make sense. But I didn’t _ feel _ any different, so I thought- well, I didn’t think anything, to be honest.”

Jason feels his throat close up, and suddenly, Dick trying to choke Jason in his sleep two days ago makes so much more sense. Dick, laughing and talking and grinning like one of Jason’s living nightmares-

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Jason demands, rising to his feet.

Dick shrugs. “It doesn’t matter now,” he says with a resigned sigh. “Everyone that contracted the virus died after they passed this stage. I’m- I’m not okay with that, but I’m more worried about _ you_. Jason, the only reason I figured out you were behind the Penguin’s murder is because I recognized your scent there, _ on him. _ But Bruce will figure it out too.”

He takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes. “I can’t even keep you safe from _ me _ right now, I don’t- I won’t be able to protect you from Bruce. _ So please_. At least give me a good reason to _ try. _ Tell me you didn’t have a choice.”

He’s given up. The fucking- the goddamn bastard’s _ given up _ and Jason- Jason feels fury burn through him and he strides over to the bars, kicking at them violently. They clang against the steel toes of his boots, and Dick flinches at the sound, eyes snapping open with shock.

“Are you fucking _ kidding _ me?” Jason snarls between the bars. “Are you really going to stand there and fucking tell me that you’re not even going to _ try _ to get cured, and you’re using _ me _ as a fucking excuse? What the fuck do you think that’s supposed to achieve, asshole?! What is keeping me here with you going to do besides get us _ both _ killed? Because either I’m going to brain you against these goddamn bars for being a complete _ moron_, or you’re going to go full-out Joker on me and mind-fuck me to death before you move on to the rest of Gotham City!”

Dick’s staring at him blankly by the time Jason’s finished, and Jason glares right back, his breathing coming in short, harsh pants. And then Dick _ laughs, _but it’s not the Joker laugh from before. 

No, this is the terrible, humourless sound of the hopeless, and it unnerves Jason that it’s coming from _ Dick _ of all people.

“Jason,” Dick says slowly after his laughter dies down. He’s looking at Jason with pity in his eyes. “I’m not _ keeping _ you here. There’s a door right behind you that you can leave through any time you want. I _ want _ you to. I just needed to know why you killed Cobblepot so I have something to defend you with when Bruce finds me here. If- if it’s _ still _ me that he’ll find here.”


	8. Chapter 8

Bruce detects a faint, floral scent under the pungent, decaying stench of Cobblepot’s mangled corpse in the morgue. It’s barely there, and under any other circumstances, Bruce wouldn’t have given it any thought at all. It could’ve been from any number of things.

Except, he _ knows _ that scent. He’d been drunk on guilt and lust for it not too long ago, and the growing suspicions in his mind makes Bruce almost wish he were anyone else besides Batman; that he could overlook this brutality in his own city, just _ once_.

The scent, on top of Dick’s apprehension at the brutality of the Penguin’s attack - the personal nature surrounding its cruelty - and the fact that the bullet casings retrieved from the scene hadn’t been commercial; it all points to _ Jason_.

Jason had murdered Cobblepot.

A part of Bruce knows this for a fact. There’s no mystery to be solved here, not when there’s more than enough physical evidence to prove otherwise.

But Bruce can’t _ believe _ that. Ever since Jason had murdered Sionis, Bruce had wrung a grudging oath from him to _ never _ kill again. Or at least _ try _not to.

Jason’s kept to that oath, insofar that Bruce is aware. For all that Jason hates him now, hates them all by association, he’s come far in at least wanting to maintain some semblance of peace with the family.

Jason might not agree with Bruce’s methods, but he’s respected them, at least for some part due to the fact that Bruce has allowed him his own. Bruce knows what Jason’s doing with the criminal underground, and while he doesn’t approve of them in any way, as long as Jason’s not shooting people dead indiscriminately, Bruce doesn’t try to stop him either.

They’ve been in this grudging truce for over a year now. They haven’t been on speaking terms, but Jason’s at least been in frequent - _ civil _ \- contact with Barbara. It doesn’t make sense why Jason would throw all that away now for the _ Penguin _ of all people.

(A part of Bruce wonders if it’s because of their night together in bed, and it’s a painful thought. But a part of him also knows that he shouldn’t kid himself like that.

Jason may hate him, but Bruce shouldn’t think so highly of himself to believe, even for a moment, that Jason might go to such extreme lengths just to get back at him.

But then again; it’s _ Jason_. Bruce has never been good at understanding him, no matter how hard he’s tried.)

“Besides ruining my appetite for the next _ year_, I don’t think we’re going to get anything from the body, B,” Tim says from where he’s standing on the other side of Cobblepot’s corpse.

Even from under the mask, Bruce can see how sick he looks.

“You’re right. Run through the rest of the toxicology report back at the cave.”

Bruce turns, striding out of the morgue without another glance back, even as Tim calls out, “Where are _ you _ going?”

“To find answers.”

It’s not a coincidence that Dick had abruptly run off to ‘deal with some personal stuff’ and hasn’t been back yet after five hours either. 

Fortunately for Bruce, Dick hadn’t disabled the trackers in his boots.

\---

Jason’s been pacing a dent into the carpet for the past half hour, agitated and still angry.

Dick had passed out after his pathetic confession, right there on the floor against the island counter, and Jason’s been left to his own thoughts since.

Or, well. His and the goddamn ghost of Joker past’s.

** _Come on_**_, _ ** _ kiddo_**_. _ ** _ Don’t tell me you’re not even a _ ** **little** ** _ bit curious_**_, _ ** _hm_**_? _

“Shut up,” Jason hisses, but he can’t help his gaze from wandering briefly over to Dick’s prone form as he passes by it for the umpteenth time.

** _You’re thinking it_**_, _ ** _aren’t you_**_? _ ** _You’re wondering_**_; _ ** _was it Batsy_**_? _ ** _Was it _ ** **you**_? _ ** _ You_ ** ** do** ** _ have a tendency of ruining everything around you_**_, _ ** _ahahahaha_ ** _ … _

“So does Batman, now _ shut up._”

** _Yeesh_**_, _ ** _so touchy_**_… _

The Joker-ghost had slunk back to his side not five minutes ago, but Jason hadn’t been caught off-guard by it this time. He’d found that while it _ looks _ real as hell, it’s _ intangible. _ He’d tried to punch it again, but his hand had simply run through the apparition like air. The discovery had made it easier for Jason to ignore it. For the most part.

Even in death, the bastard won’t fucking _ shut up. _

On the upside, _ seeing _ the apparition has quietened the other voices in his head, and at least Jason knows where this one’s coming from this time.

** _But seriously_**_, _ ** _birdboy_**_. _ ** _Think about it_**_. _ ** _You’ve had me in your head this whole time_**_, _ ** _ but never like _ ** **this**. ** _ Sure_**_, _ ** _it’s definitely a huge improvement_**_, _ ** _but _ ** **why now**_? _

The Joker-ghost’s sprawled across the sofa now, drawing shapes in the air above his head lazily, and Jason’s jaw clenches at the sight of it, locking so hard his face aches. Annoyingly, it’s right. _ Why now_?

Something’s going on here. First Dick’s infected, and now Jason’s literally seeing his demons? It can’t be a coincidence. But whatever’s the connection, Jason’s not going to find it here, stuck in this unfamiliar safehouse with an unconscious Dick. 

He can leave, and _ fuck_, does he ever want to. A part of him is eager to get the hell out of dodge, to ditch Gotham entirely and let Bruce deal with the fallout of Dick’s condition and the Penguin’s murder. Let him deal with all this shit on own.

But a part of him can’t bring himself to do it.

It’s the same part of him that hadn’t allowed him to leave the manor that night, after Dick had had the balls to proposition him like some common whore. The same part that had burst with pent-up relief as he’d sunk himself into Bruce’s heat, had allowed himself the weakness of having what he’d wanted all his young life.

It’s the same part of him that now understands the difference between those two desires, that now understands that while he’d die for Bruce - even _ now_,_ especially _ now - he’d suffer another lifetime for _ Dick _ alone.

Jason can’t leave him. It’s a fact.

Even just the thought makes him feel ill, ignites that same feeling he gets whenever he catches sight of the Joker-ghost. The only other option then is to help him.

** _Oh_**_, _ ** _ are we doing it then_**_? _ ** _ Whoohee_**_, _ ** _goody_**_! _ ** _ I was getting bored out of your mind_**_. _

Jason growls at the ghost as it climbs to its feet, stretching its arms over its head with a happy groan. His fingers twitch, instinctively curling around the handle of an invisible gun, but Dick hadn’t bothered to bring it with them when he’d brought them here, so Jason’s holster is obnoxiously empty.

_ Don’t think about it_, he tells himself instead, fixing his gaze ahead of him as he strides over to the door. _ Don’t fucking think about it_.

He hears the ghost say something else, but for once, Jason’s stubbornness works in his favour; he doesn’t hear a damn thing as he pulls the - unlocked, Dick? Seriously? - door open and leaves the safehouse.

They’re in Amusement Mile, much to Jason’s disdain. Somewhere along the eastern corner of it, facing the river. It’s no wonder Jason hadn’t recognized it, even though he knows nearly every building in Gotham like the back of his own hand.

It’s the only district Jason doesn’t come near anymore. Dick must’ve picked it on instinct, some drive to be close to the Joker’s old haunting grounds due to the virus.

“Hey, Red Suit!”

** _Haaarley_** _! _

Jason scowls as the Joker-ghost runs past him and towards the familiar figure of Harley Quinn, standing on the roof of the safehouse’s building. _ Great_.

The Joker-ghost climbs up the side of the building like a goddamn squirrel, scrambling over to its old sidekick. Its arms flail ineffectually when it tries to throw them around her though, eliciting a disappointed groan from it.

Jason watches the display with a disgusted curl of his lips, and Harley mistakes it as directed at her. She frowns down at him in response, aiming an oversized gun at Jason.

“Ya’ve got something that belongs ta _ me_!” she shouts down at him. “Now give it back or I’ll send ya back ta Bats in pieces!”

Footsteps thud from round the corner of the building, and Jason looks away from Harley to see her men running towards him, some of them armed with stun batons and baseball bats. They skid to a stop several feet away though, clearly wary of him, and Jason smirks at them before looking back up at Harley.

“Your boys look scared, Quinn,” he says. He cracks his neck, eliciting a round of startled flinches from them that makes his smirk nastier. “Sure you wanna do this right now?”

** _Atta boy_**_, _ ** _kiddo_**_, _ ** _that’s the spirit_**_! _ ** _ Beat ‘em all to a bloody pulp_**_\- _

Harley looks around at her men with a glare. “What’re you waiting for, ya idiots? Get him!”

It’s almost child’s play, how easy it is to knock out them out, to dodge their clumsy fists and uncoordinated swings. Jason barely breaks a sweat by the time they’re all a groaning pile on the ground, and Harley’s jumped down from the roof with an irritated glare on her painted face.

“I gotta do everything myself around here,” she whines, spreading her feet apart as she hefts the gun and aims it at Jason. “Don’t move, Red Suit.”

Jason fights the urge to roll his eyes, his gaze drifting over to the Joker-ghost instead. It’s peering over Harley’s shoulder from behind her, having jumped down right after her earlier.

** _That looks like it might actually hurt_**_, _ ** _junior_**_. _ ** _You’re not gonna let her shoot us_**_, _ ** _are ya_**_? _

Jason ignores it, crossing his arms over his chest as he levels Harley an unimpressed stare. “Didn’t I _ just _ put you behind bars?”

Harley sneers in response, her grip on the gun tightening although she’s not making any move to really shoot him. “Ya think the GCPD’s enough ta keep me from my Mistah J?”

“The Joker’s dead, Harley.”

“Not according to _ Nightlight _in there.”

** _Oh_**_, _ ** _I never knew Harley was so clever_**_. _ ** _How did she figure _ ** **that** ** _ out_**_? _

It’s annoying that that’s exactly what Jason had been thinking too, and he shoots the Joker-ghost a brief glare before meeting Harley’s gaze again.

“This anything to do with what you were doing with Scarecrow that night?”

Harley juts her chin out defiantly, snapping, “It’s none of yer business, batbrat.”

Jason narrows his eyes at her. “You heard about Penguin, didn’t you?”

She tenses visibly at the mention of Cobblepot, her hands drawing the gun closer to her as she licks at her lips nervously. 

“I’m not playing around, Harley,” Jason warns. “You tell me what the fuck you did right now or Penguin won’t be the only piece of shit getting buried this week.”

“What do _ you _ care, anyway?” she says, taking a small step back from him. She doesn’t seem to even realize she’d done it, her eyes now wide with fear and apprehension as she stares at him. “Ya wanted all them bat-freaks dead, didn’t ya? I’m just taking back what Bats took from _ me_.”

“The Joker got what he deserved,” Jason says, and Harley bristles immediately.

The gun shakes in her hands with her agitation, as she snarls at him, “B-man didn’t have any right ta kill Mistah J! He shouldn’t have had ta die! Not like that!”

“You’re right.” 

Jason darts forward, faster than Harley could react, and grabs the barrel of the gun, twisting it out of her hands and turning it on her instead. “He should’ve _ suffered_.”

She shrieks, an indignant, terrified sound that makes Jason’s ears ring, raising her hands in front of her like they’re any protection against lead bullets.

“Ya can’t _ do _ that!”

“I just _ did_.”

** _Ooh boy_**_,_**_ shoot her_**_! _ ** _ Shoot her_**_, _ ** _kiddo_**_! _ ** _You _ ** **know** ** _ you want to_**_\- _

Jason settles his finger on the trigger, the movement catching Harley’s eyes. “Talk, or I shoot. It’s your choice.”

Harley shakes her head, making a bitten-off groan of frustration. Jason almost thinks she’s stubborn enough to make him shoot her, but then she throws her hands out and hastily hisses, “Fine, it was _ my _idea, okay? Old bird-brain wanted ta make B-man suffer and sell him out to whoever paid the highest but I put Mistah J’s blood in the toxin they were using!”

Jason feels his jaw clenching instinctively, anger bubbling under his skin at her confession. “_You _ infected Nightwing?”

Harley sniffs, rolling her eyes. “I wanted _ Bats _ but Nightlight was the only one it worked on,” she says in a sulking tone. Then, with a small smirk, she adds slyly, “Guess it ain’t that bad though. Mistah J, taking another one of Batsy’s birdies. It’s just like the old days.”

She’s already on the ground before Jason even realizes that he’d moved, clutching at her face where the butt of the gun had slammed into her with a wailing cry.

** _Yeeees_**_, _ ** _ that’s my boy_**_! _ ** _ Hit her_**_, _ ** _hit her harder_**_! _

“What’s _ wrong _ with ya?” she screeches, but her words are muffled and nasally, distorted by the blood streaming down from her broken nose. “Is that how ya treat a lady!”

Jason snarls wordlessly, moving closer until he’s looming over her, shoving the barrel against the side of her head violently. She flinches with a whine of pain, glaring up at him through teary eyes.

“Shut up,” Jason growls, and he’s not sure himself whether the words are directed at Harley or the Joker-ghost. It’s bouncing in place just behind Harley, giggling hysterically as it urges Jason on.

** _Go ahead_**_, _ **shoot her**_! _ ** _Make her pay_**_! _

“I said, shut up!”

“I didn’t _ say _nothing!”

Harley looks like she’s about to really start crying, and Jason growls with frustration, forcing himself to pull the gun off her in a jerky motion.

“I’m not talking to _ you_,” he snarls, earning a confused frown from her.

“Then who’re you-?”

“**Oh**, ** _Jaaaaason_**!”

The call of his name is a sharp, twisted sound of broken syllables that sends a wave of trepidation crawling down his spine, and Jason tenses, craning his neck to look over his shoulder. It shouldn’t be, but it _ is_, it’s-

“**Now**, **why would you leave lil’ old me all on my lonesome**, **Jay-Jay**?” Dick- _ no_, the Joker asks, his grin stretching across Dick’s pale, veined face eerily wide. “**I thought we were getting along**?”

“Mistah J!” Harley cries out happily.

“**_Shut up_**, **Harley**,” the Joker snaps, his tone turning harsh and growling at the same time that his grin morphs into an angry snarl directed at Harley. “**Can’t you see the adults are talking here**?”

The Joker-ghost lets out a long, low whistle, stalking over to Jason’s side where it stops with its hands on its hips. ** _Boy_**_, _ ** _he sounds _ ** **just ** ** _like me_**_, _ ** _doesn’t he_**_? _

The Joker’s standing hunched, just past the door to the building, a hand clutching at his left arm. It looks unusual, deformed almost, and Jason realizes that it’s because it’s dislocated. His arm is hanging limply by his side when he starts moving towards them, although the Joker doesn’t seem to care, grinning gruesomely again at Jason.

“Don’t move! What did you do to him?” Jason demands, whirling around and aiming the gun at the Joker instead.

The Joker giggles, but keeps walking, and Jason clutches the gun tighter.

“I’ll _ shoot_,” he warns.

“**Will you**?” the Joker asks, finally stopping, a thoughtful look forming on his sick face. It’s replaced almost immediately by a smug smirk, and he adds, “**I don’t think I believe you**,” before he’s moving again.

He doesn’t get a step in before Jason shoots at the ground in front of his foot, and the Joker howls with delight, jumping backwards with a comical flailing of his working arm.

“What. Did you do to him?” Jason repeats, dangerous and low.

The Joker doesn’t answer immediately, letting out a round of hysterical chuckles instead, turning on the spot like he can’t quite keep his balance. He sways when he finally ceases, his functioning arm thrown out to the side in presentation, his head tilted as he shoots Jason a knowing look behind cold, electric green eyes.

“**It’s nothing we couldn’t handle**,” he says with a one-sided shrug. “**Had to get out of that cage you left us in somehow**, **didn’t we**?”

“You put _ yourself _ in there,” Jason says, and the Joker giggles again, dropping his arm back down to his side.

“**Yes**, **but we didn’t think you would ** ** _actually_ ** ** leave us**,” he reasons with a roll of his eyes. “**You’re used to being the one left behind**, **aren’t you**? **You know what it feels like**, **little wing**.”

Jason flinches involuntarily at the nickname. He’s used to hearing it from Dick, but not- not _ this _ fucked up version of him. It sounds _ wrong _ coming from this face, this warped amalgamation of the two people in the world that he’s never been able to let go.

“Don’t call me that,” he snaps, but it comes off as more of a plea than anything else.

The slight tremor in his voice isn’t lost on the Joker either, who grins nastily again. “**Aw**, **did I hurt my widdle alpha’s ** ** _feelings_**?”

Jason growls, lifting the gun and aiming it properly at the Joker’s chest, but the Joker just narrows his eyes at him, unperturbed.

“**It’s not the only thing that’s gonna hurt**,” he says.

Before Jason can even begin to guess what the fuck he’s talking about, a weight drops onto his back, at the same time arms wrap around his neck from behind.

“Take this, ya stupid jerk!” Harley shouts into his ear, squeezing around Jason’s neck until he’s barely able to breathe.

They struggle for a moment, Jason trying to pull the psychotic clown off of him while her fingers scramble for purchase on his face, scraping her nails along his skin in painful rakes as her arms obstruct his breathing. She’s not light, by any means, and Jason loses his footing quickly, bringing them both crashing down to the ground.

Harley manages to straddle his waist, but Jason’s still got the gun in his hands even though he’s on his back, and he blindly bats it against her. She catches hold of the gun too, and it’s a new struggle to not let her have it completely.

** _Fight fight fight fight_**_! _ ** _Giver her hell_**_, _ ** _partner_**_! _

“**Come on**, **cupcake**! **You can do better than that**!”

The butt of the gun crashes into a corner of Harley’s jaw in their tug-of-war, and she cries out with pain, letting go momentarily. It’s enough for Jason to overpower her, rolling them over until their positions are reversed, and Harley reaches up to grab his throat when Jason steadies his grip on the gun and shoves the barrel against her throat. Harley freezes completely, staring up at him with wide, panicked eyes.

“Don’t move,” Jason hisses.

“**What are you waiting for**? **Shoot her**!”

Harley makes a quiet, whimpering sound at the Joker’s cheer, and Jason digs the barrel a little harder against her throat before looking up and glaring at the bastard.

“**Go on**, **do it**,” the Joker urges. “ **You know she deserves it**. **She tried to ** ** _kill_ ** ** you**, **didn’t she**?”

“Mistah J,” Harley whines.

The Joker ignores her, waving a hand in the air as he continues, “**She’s killed so many people**, **hurt so many of your little friends**! **It’s justice**! **It’s what you’ve always wanted**!”

** _He’s right_**_, _ ** _you know_**_? _ ** _Hard to argue with that kind of logic_**_. _

Is he?

It’d be easy, that’s for sure. Just a little bit of pressure on the trigger, and _ boom_. Harley would be dead. It’d solve a lot of problems, save hundreds of innocent lives too. And _ god_, does Jason _ want _ to kill her.

After everything she’s done; to Gotham, to _ him_. She’d never been allowed to hurt him while the Joker had held him captive, but she’d still _ been _there. She’d always been by his side. All the fucking time.

She _ deserves _ death.

** _She’s as crazy as us_**_, _ ** _birdie_**_. _ ** _The whole world’s better off with her dead_**_! _ ** _And all you need is just one BANG_**_! _

As crazy as us.

That’s the whole point though, isn’t it? _ Us_.

As much as Jason _ hates _ her, as much as his blood _ boils _ at the thought of her alive and breathing, even if rotting away in Blackgate-

This isn’t the Joker egging him on. This is _ Dick_, no matter what he looks like, no matter what he sounds like. And while he’s insane _ right now_, he’s not going to be forever. 

Jason’s going to make sure he’s going to get cured, and _ when _ that happens, Jason’s not going to be the one to tell Dick that Harley’s gone because Dick had told him to shoot her dead.

(Even if a part of him wants it to be true.)

** _No_**_! _ ** _No no no no no_**_-! _

“I’m not going to shoot her.” Jason pulls the gun away, as if to prove his point, climbing to his feet and stepping over her to the side. He gives her a warning glare, but Harley’s too busy sniffling quietly to herself to really notice.

** _We were going to kill her_**_! _ ** **

“**Really**?” the Joker says. He’s frowning now, his grin finally gone, and the look on his face is nothing short of disappointed disgust. “**It’s Batsy**, **isn’t it**? **Even after all this time**, **even after ****_everything_** **he’s done to you**? **You’re still desperate for daddy’s ****_approval_**.”

He snorts derisively, tossing his head back with a flair and a disapproving frown, and Jason _ almost _ feels something unpleasant curl in his gut at the sight of it.

(Once upon a time, he’d been terrified of upsetting the Joker. Once upon a time, even the slightest downward tilt of those scarred lips had Jason immediately begging and pleading for mercy.

Once upon a time, Jason hadn’t thought he’d live through the depths of the Joker’s cruelty, had rolled over and bent over backwards just to lessen it as much as he could.

But he had. And he’s not going to let it play out that way again.)

“**You’re so pathetic**, **Jay-Jay**. **It was entertaining for a while**, ** _sure_**, **but now it’s just ** ** _boring_**. **We thought we finally beat it into you that ** ** _nobody cares about you_**. **Wasn’t dying for daddy’s love once enough**?”

(And is it just him, or is the Joker a lot less terrifying than he remembers him?)

Jason aims the gun at the Joker again. “Get back inside that safehouse, asswipe.”

“**You ain’t gonna shoot Harley**, **why would I believe you’re gonna shoot** ** _ me_**?” the Joker sneers.

Jason’s aim doesn’t falter. “Because we both know you’d rather be dead than be the reason why _ she _ is,” he says flatly. “Dick, if you’re listening, I just wanted you to know-”

“**Dickiebird’s ** ** _gone_**, **baby boy**!” the Joker snarls viciously, his demeanour turning defensive. “**Nobody’s home but Uncle J**!”

“- that I’ve always _really_ wanted to do this,” Jason finishes before promptly shooting the Joker in his dislocated shoulder.

The Joker screeches, clutching at the bleeding wound as he staggers backwards. “**Why you little**-”

“Red Hood!”

Jason internally crumples in relief as the familiar growl of a new voice joins them, and he’d never thought he could ever feel _ happy _ to hear-

“Batman, you take Nightwing,” Robin says as he lands next to Jason out of nowhere, tiny but as serious as ever. “I will contain Harley Quinn.”

“**Batsyyy**!”

** _Ugh_**_, _ ** _who invited _ ** **him** ** _ to the party_**_? _

Robin grabs the gun out of Jason’s hands, although it’s not an impressive feat considering Jason’s not trying to hold onto it. Robin eyes him suspiciously for that, but Jason’s too tired to explain, ignoring the glare in favour of watching Batman go toe-to-toe against the Joker.

Even with his dislocated shoulder and the gunshot wound bleeding steadily, the Joker’s not taking Batman’s fists lying down. He’s laughing hysterically as he meets almost every blow, folds into every hit, taking it like he’s _ enjoying _it.

It’s almost like before, back when- well. Back when Jason had still been Robin.

Except, this Joker’s hair is still mostly black besides the roots, and his eyes keep shifting between too green and too bright, and even though he’s cackling like a maniacal demon, there’s a layer of Dick’s timbre underneath it that Jason only recognizes because he knows every cadence of both the Joker and Dick Grayson’s voices.

It’s both a familiar and a foreign sight, watching Batman and the Joker fight, and Jason’s mostly just glad that it’s not _ him _ that has to do it.

“Hood!” Damian growls suddenly, forcing Jason’s attention to him. “Red Robin is on his way with the cure. We need to help Batman pin Nightwing down long enough to administer it.”

_ Or not_. Damn it.

“Really? Is that how you ask for help?”

“_Hood_-”

“Alright, alright! Jeez. I’ll grab his legs, you grab his arm.”

** _Finally_**_! _ ** _I was worried we weren’t getting any action_**_. _

\---

“You did this to me, boy.”

Everything’s dark. Pitch black.

“You killed me.”

The air around him is so thick with it - with shadows and evil, a menacing _ presence _ that he can’t make out but can _ feel _ cloying against him with every breath he takes.

“You failed him.”

He tries to move, but he can’t see anything so he doesn’t know if it’s working. And _ that _ voice-

“You’re _ weak_.”

\- he _ knows _ it. 

It’s Cobblepot. Penguin. But it can’t be. Cobblepot is _ dead_, he’d seen it with his own eyes.

But his eyes aren’t working. He can’t see anything, not through the miasma of pure darkness consuming him. Where is it coming from? How had he gotten here? The last thing he remembers is Jason-

He cries out when a sharp pain spreads along his arm, feeling himself fall to his knees even though he can’t tell if it’s real or just in his head because he _ can’t see_. He can’t see the ground, or anything else.

“Aw, is the pretty bird scared?”

He jerks back instinctively, but something solid hits his back, cold and hard. He can’t tell, but he thinks he feels arms wrapping around his chest from behind, holding him still, and he opens his mouth to shout, but no sound comes out.

“Don’t worry, kiddo. Uncle J’s got this _ all _covered, hmm? Ahahahah…”

Uncle J? He doesn’t know an Uncle J. But he knows _ this _ voice too. He knows this terrible, awful laughter, the grating sound that won’t leave his worst nightmares.

“It hurts, doesn’t it? All those **bastards**, the **freaks ** that took a little bit of you every time, all these _ years_. _ Taking _ and _ taking_, and _ you_\- always giving it to them because you’re **weak**.”

Something booms loudly in the distance, and the ground shakes under him. He almost topples to the side, but the arms keep him in place, steadying him.

“And _ Jason_. Our little birdie, they even took _ him _ away too. He’s ours. ** _Ours_**. Well, he was _ mine _ at first, but I’m you now, aren’t I? Ehehehe- **we’re one of a kind**, you and I. And we don’t _ share_.”

_ Dick- _

He twitches, turning his head to look but- it’s still dark, it’s still black. He can’t make anything out. One of the arms loosens and moves, until there are cold, stiff fingers grasping at his chin, and he gasps, pain blooming across his face.

_ Snap out of it- _

“I gotta say, bird boy. This body _ does _ feel like a million bucks-”

The arms lift him bodily off the ground, throwing him forward, a weight following behind him and pushing him further until he’s stumbling. He’s falling, air swishing past his face, his lips parting once again to release a silent scream.

_ Haven’t ya done enough- _

_ He’s not the Joker, Harley- _

_ Take her down to the- _

_ Batman, stop- _

_ What the hell is _ that_\- _

“Ohohoo, this is so much _ fun_-”

He doesn’t stop falling, and _ he _ doesn’t stop talking. Neither do the voices, the distant shouting of people he’s sure he’s supposed to know. But why are they yelling at each other? What’s happening to him?

There’s something _ wrong _ but he can’t remember _ why_.

And the darkness, _ god_. He feels _ blind _ and it terrifies him, more than the possibility that he might be falling to his death right now. Why is everything so _ dark_? He can’t breathe in it, in this- this endless _ void _ of nothingness.

He can’t-

_ Dick- _

\- breathe-

_ \- you have to- _

“Stop me if you’ve heard this one-”

\- can’t move-

\- _ stop it_-

“- a little birdie has his wings clipped and falls into a circus-”

\- can’t speak-

\- _ let us help_-

“- and a clown says-” 

\- can’t do anything _ right_-

\- _ the cure_-

“- **what a ** ** _hoot_**.”

\- _ Dick, come on! _

\- he can’t do anything at all.


	9. Chapter 9

Jason wants to stay in the cave, in the infirmary where Tim’s been tasked to observe Dick’s recovery.

(Or maybe just leave. 

Jason’s been itching to leave since they’d stepped foot on the manor’s grounds, desperate to get as far away from- from _ everything_, as quickly as possible.)

But Bruce had insisted he stay upstairs, to stay away because Dick’s still not Dick yet, not completely. The last of the Joker cells are still clinging stubbornly to Dick’s body, and even if Dick regains consciousness soon, he’ll be disoriented and confused; furious, even. The Joker inside him warring with Dick’s mind to gain control again.

Even so, Bruce won’t let him leave the manor completely, because, in his own words; _ Dick will need you when he wakes up_.

Jason doubts it, but he’d been too tired to argue. His ribs have all but righted themselves, but he’d gotten a dose of the cure too, and he hasn’t had a full night’s rest in what feels like forever. These last few days are really taking a toll on him. At this point, he just wants to be left alone, and to _ sleep_.

Alfred’s kind of enough to keep Damian away from the study where Jason’s sequestered himself, but even Alfred can’t - or _ won’t _ \- stop Bruce from entering, just as Jason’s dozing off in front of the fireplace.

“We still haven’t had that talk,” Bruce says, and Jason twitches uncomfortably, itching for his guns again.

Bruce looks almost as tired as Jason feels, although Jason can’t quite tell considering he’s refusing to look at the man directly. To Bruce’s credit, he doesn’t sit next to Jason on the sofa, opting instead for the armchair to the left; keeping a respectful distance without being asked.

“Did Harley tell you what she did?” Jason asks when Bruce doesn’t say anything else, if only to drown out the sound of the crackling firewood.

(It’s quiet in his head again, even though the Joker-ghost is gone. Jason’s still not used to the silence.)

“She confessed to everything,” Bruce says. “Damian will destroy whatever stash of the Joker’s blood that she still has, including Scarecrow’s unrefined toxin.”

“You trust the kid to handle that himself?” It’s as much a jibe as genuine curiousity, and Bruce sighs in response.

“Attempting to stop him would be an exercise in futility,” he says in a deadpan. “Barbara will be monitoring him discreetly until he returns. It’s the best I can do given the circumstances.”

He sighs again and leans forward in the chair, resting his arms over his knees and burying his face in his hands. It’s such an unnaturally _ human _ posture, for the Batman, and it makes Jason shift uncomfortably in his own seat, his eyes darting over to Bruce without his permission.

“There are many things that I want to say to you, Jason,” Bruce says, quiet and muffled behind his palms. “Too many things. I can’t- there’s so much that I don’t even know where to start.”

Jason’s jaw clenches, and his first instinct is to glare at Bruce and tell him where he can shove all the _ things _ that he wants to say.

But Bruce isn’t done, continuing with, “I know it was you who killed the Penguin,” and looking up from his hands into Jason’s eyes.

Jason tenses under the impassive gaze, his jaw locking so hard that it feels like his teeth are going to grind themselves to dust. He’s not sure what Bruce expects him to say to that declaration, but Jason’s tempted to give in to his earlier desire to flee and never look back.

“I also know that you were carrying the virus inside you when it happened.”

Ah. And _ there _ it is; the assumption that Bruce knows more about what’s going on than Jason does. That he knows _ Jason _ more than Jason knows himself.

Granted, Jason has only the barest understanding of what’s been happening recently, given what Harley had said and his own fractured recollection of the Penguin’s death. But Bruce’s silent insinuation still pisses him off nonetheless.

Jason’s so sick of unspoken things, and snarls, “If you’ve got something to say, just spit it out and get it over with, _ Bruce_.”

Bruce takes Jason’s harsh tone in stride, straightening from his hunch, expression staying frustratingly neutral. “I understand that you weren’t in a right state of mind when you murdered him, Jason,” he says. “If it weren’t for the Joker virus, you would’ve never gone that far.”

Jason scoffs, glaring at him. “Oh, you have _ no idea _ how much I’ve wanted the bastard dead,” he sneers. “Him dying? Highlight of my year.”

It doesn’t matter that it’s only half the truth, that a part of Jason still feels a little green when he remembers snatches of what he’d done to Cobblepot. The _ screams _ and the _ pleading _ \- no, none of that matters, because there’s also a part of Jason that’s _ glad _ he’d done it; regardless of whether he’d been under the Joker’s influence of not.

And Bruce _ doesn’t know any of that_. He _ doesn’t_.

He _ can’t _ know, because Jason doesn’t want the pity that he can see gathering in Bruce’s eyes. The guilt. The self-loathing. The goddamn _ disappointment _.

(He doesn’t want Bruce to feel any of that.)

“You didn’t kill Harley when you had the chance,” Bruce says, the low timbre of his voice almost gentle. “You spared her again. You saved her life.”

“The only reason I didn’t shoot her was because it was exactly what that limp-dick clownknotter wanted,” Jason denies. “Like hell I was going to give him that.”

Bruce doesn’t say anything, but the corners of his mouth lift in a sad, indulgent smile that makes Jason’s hackles rise with what he tells himself is irritation. It’s obvious that Bruce doesn’t believe him, that he thinks Jason’s just trying to save face.

The only reason Jason’s cheeks heat up then is purely because of fury, of course, because he’s so angry that his blood’s boiling under his skin and threatening to spur him into finally leaving. But before he can stand, Bruce’s smile falls away and he averts his gaze down to the floor.

“The Joker infected me the night that he died,” he says, going quiet again. “I know what the virus does to you, Jason. Better than anyone else. I know how it pushes you constantly to the edge of losing yourself, to give in to the monster under our masks.”

The night that-? Jason frowns, confused and curious despite himself. If Bruce had been infected that night, so many years ago- 

“But you got cured,” he says. “You weren’t infected when I-”

He can’t bring himself to say, _ when I was the Arkham Knight_, but Bruce - _ damn him _\- understands and smiles wryly.

“I was already halfway gone,” he confesses. “Tim and I were searching for a cure, but we were still far from understanding how it worked, let alone how to stop it.” He looks up, stares into Jason’s eyes. “We probably still wouldn’t understand how it worked if Scarecrow hadn’t injected his toxin into me.

“Somehow, the fear it induced helped integrate the Joker prions with my own cells. I was never cured, Jason. I just adapted.”

“Then Dick and I-”

“I asked Barbara to keep working on a cure, just in case something like this might happen. My body- yours too, Jason. We’re different. We both have something in common that no one else does. No one left alive, that is.”

It takes Jason point two seconds to understand what Bruce means, and then he’s got even more questions than answers.

“When did you get into a Lazarus Pit?” is the only question worth voicing out loud, he finally decides.

Bruce smiles, another sad little thing tinged with mild pride that certainly doesn’t make Jason’s cheeks flush hotter. “The same night I was infected,” he explains. “I wasn’t submerged in there like I assume you were. But I needed Ra’s al Ghul’s blood and he forced me to go through his demon trials to get close to him. It required me to ingest water from the Pit.”

Despite it all, that last bit makes Jason blanch with disgust, and Bruce breathes out a quiet chuckle as Jason says, “You _ drank _the old bastard’s bath water. Jesus, Bruce, what the actual fuck.”

“It was necessary,” Bruce says in defense, without any heat. “I wouldn’t have lasted much longer if it hadn’t been for that.”

There’s a resignation in his tone as he admits this, and Jason’s disgust is replaced quickly by anger. Not just at the Joker, for putting Bruce through that, but at Bruce too. Even _ then_, even faced with his own mortality at the hands of the same scum that had ‘killed’ Jason- Bruce hadn’t had any intentions of letting the Joker die that night.

But he’s so _ tired _ of letting that set him off. He’s so _ tired _ of trying to convince Bruce that he’s wrong about the Joker. He’s so _ tired _ of wanting to be as important to Bruce as the Joker had been to him, regardless of Bruce’s denials and justifications.

Bruce’s fixation with the dead clown- Jason’s tired of that being _ his _ problem, so he takes a deep, grounding breath, and does what he knows he should’ve done, fucking _ years _ ago-

He lets it slide.

“Will the cure work on me then?” he asks instead, closing his eyes so he doesn’t have to look into Bruce’s. “Since I’m so fucking _ special_.”

“It should. You haven’t been hearing him, have you? … Or seeing him?”

Of course Bruce would know about _ that_. 

It’s almost as painful as swallowing down his pride and fury to bite out an affirming, “No. Not since- _ no_.”

“Then it works.”

Relief unfurls in his gut then, even if Jason will never admit that that had been a concern since he’d woken up to see the fucking Joker lounging around in his safehouse. 

But the same concern puts him on edge now, and he can’t help but ask, “How the fuck did _ I _get infected in the first place?”

Jason’s shocked when Bruce actually _ blushes_, mirroring the same grudging, embarrassed expression that must be what Jason had been sporting earlier.

“The only instances when the virus could have been transferred to you would be the night we’d spent together, or the nights you’d spent with Dick,” Bruce says, gaze averting to the floor, although his voice remains steady and calm. Matter-of-fact. “My theory leans more towards Dick, considering you _ bit _ him.”

The way he says ‘bit’ tells Jason that they’re going to have to _ talk _ about that too, now, about Dick and Jason and what’s going to happen between them. _ If _ anything’s going to happen between them.

But with an explanation like that, all Jason can really say is, “You’re fucking telling me that the Joker’s an STD?” because _ what else _ is he supposed to think.

(Besides that it’s poetic justice that the clownfucker’s been reduced to that, and Jason wishes he _ could _ still see that Joker-ghost just so he could rub this in its dead face.)

And Bruce cracks another smile; small and fatigued. “That’s one way to put it, I suppose.”

“Then that cure better fucking work, Bruce, because I’m not gonna be the one to tell Dick I’m never touching him again with a ten-foot pole.”

Jason’s declaration shocks a bark of laughter from the older man, hoarse but genuinely amused, and the sound of it makes Jason feel warm, feel just a little less murderous and a little more I-want-to-stay, kind-of. He hasn’t heard it in a long time, not since- well. _ Since_.

It brings back with it so many memories, memories that Jason had buried; memories he’d denied himself in favour of his vindication, his grudge and thirst for vengeance and violence.

(It reminds Jason of a time when Jason hadn’t been marked with an ugly scar on his face, hadn’t been tortured with a crowbar and killed by a shot to the head, hadn’t woken up to Talia’s terrifying eyes and half his memories locked behind a wall of concrete hardened by trauma.)

Bruce used to laugh like this back when Jason had still been small enough to fit Dick’s old Robin shorts, and Jason wouldn’t stop making fun of them and Dick would get so annoyed he would chase Jason around in the cave, leaping from stalagmite to stalagmite. It used to drive Bruce insane, the way Jason would needle Dick until Dick would be reduced to acting like his age instead of a mini-Bruce. 

But if they’d done it just after patrol, just after Bruce had finished his report and just before he would retire to his bed upstairs, Bruce would indulge them, and _ sometimes_, he would even help Dick pin Jason down to be subjected to merciless tickles.

Jason blames it on the Joker cells, of course - never mind that Tim had already jabbed the cure into him about an hour ago; although it had taken three syringes because Jason _ hates _ needles so two had broken before they’d even made contact with his skin - when Bruce moves from his seat until he’s next to Jason, and draws him into a hug, and Jason... 

Jason waits for one long, stoic moment before he allows himself to hug him back.

“Welcome home, Jason.”


	10. in dead men's dreams.

**Epilogue - Six Months Later**

Jason wakes up tired, but not the same bone-tired kind of exhaustion that had once weighed on him for so long. 

It’s a sated, happy kind of tired, and why wouldn’t he be? He’s in bed with his mate - _ Dick is his mate, _he’s not sure how long it’ll take for this fact to sink in completely - fresh from another round of satisfying sex.

Dick’s wrapped around him, just like he usually is when they’re in bed together, and okay; maybe Jason still tenses up a little when Dick’s fingers wander too close to his neck, but it’s a brief, momentary reaction that’s mostly instinct than any actual fear of Dick trying to kill him. 

Dinah had said it was normal, that his body’s used to fighting and not much else. It’ll just take more time, and more speaking honestly with each other on their boundaries and their - ugh, _ feelings_.

Jason hates talking about his feelings with anyone but Dinah - and that’s only because Bruce had been adamant about him seeing her. She’s the Black Canary and apparently, the League’s unofficial designated therapist, but she’s also a formidable woman that would give Jason a run for his money in a one-on-one fight, and she doesn’t know Jason from a pothole on Gotham’s streets.

Talking with someone who doesn’t know who Jason is, who he’d _ been- _ Jason would never admit it to Bruce, but it’s been helping him. A lot. Which is exactly what Bruce had said would do, and exactly why Jason will _ never let him know_.

It had bothered Dick, initially, the fact that Jason’s been getting help from someone else, someone who’s virtually a stranger to him. Someone who’s not _ Dick_; his mate, the so-called love of his life.

And Jason _ gets it_. He gets why Dick had felt that way. Dick’s not hard to _ talk _to, even despite their muddled history together. 

But Jason supposes that’s exactly why it’s _ hard to talk to him_. 

Because Dick remembers Jason the way he was before the Joker had killed him, Dick remembers a kid that had worshipped the ground Dick had walked on, had taken Bruce’s word for god’s law. Dick remembers _ that _ kid, but Jason’s not that kid anymore and sometimes Jason still wonders if the only reason Dick’s with him is because Dick thinks he could bring that kid back. The kid that Dick loves.

They’d talked about it. 

(Or rather, had a screaming match and a violent fist-fight about it which had wrecked half of Dick’s apartment.)

Dick had insisted that Jason’s wrong, and Jason- rationally, he’d _ known _ that Dick had been telling the truth, but emotionally, well. Jason’s just so used to being lied to, to being second fiddle to everyone in his life, that it had been difficult - still _ is_, sometimes - for him to completely believe Dick.

Nowadays, Dick makes sure Jason’s in an amenable mood to deal with his insecurities before Dick brings up anything remotely serious about their relationship. Jason honestly appreciates the effort, but mostly, he feels even more like shit for keeping Dick on his toes like that. 

Still, Dinah’s sessions have helped. Jason’s _ trying_, and so is everyone around him. It’s more than he could’ve even dreamed of before.

It’s been half a year now, and Jason hadn’t had an episode of mindless, Lazarus Pit-driven rage for weeks, and it’s only a matter of time and patience before he never will again.

“What’re you thinkin’ ‘bout,” he hears Dick mumble sleepily, feels his breaths against Jason’s shoulder.

Familiar hands run up his sides and fold across Jason’s chest, and Jason is proud that he doesn’t tense up at the feeling.

“Nothing,” he says, leaning back into the warmth of Dick’s embrace. He hears Dick sigh happily, feels him shifting until Jason’s back is flush against Dick’s solid body, and adds, “Your heat’s over, don’t try getting frisky with me.”

Dick chuckles quietly between Jason’s shoulder blades, kissing his skin wetly before murmuring, “Are you always this coherent after heats?”

“Only the ones that end with my brains still intact.”

Dick huffs, his arms around Jason tightening, and Jason can feel him pouting against Jason’s back. “Are you questioning my sexual prowess, Mr. Todd? Because I’ll have you know, I’ve never had a single complaint.”

Jason rolls his eyes - _affectionately_, though he’ll deny it if anyone says so - and turns around, effortlessly shifting until Dick’s flat on his back with Jason straddling his waist.

“Oh really?” he leers down at Dick, eyes raking over how he looks like; his hair a mess, the bruises and bites Jason’s left on his body glaring up at Jason in the light of the rising sun outside.

Dick’s half-hard under the covers, and the firm head of his cock juts up just shy against the bottom swell of Jason’s ass. Jason pushes back against it teasingly, enjoying the way Dick’s eyes widen and his breath catches in his throat at the contact.

“And pray tell, who are these non-complaining recipients?” Jason says, reaching down to rest his hands on the muscles shuddering under Dick’s warm skin. “I might need to check, you know? To make sure they weren’t bought off or manipulated into giving falsely positive reviews.”

Dick’s lips quirk up in a dopey smile, his hands rising to rest on the backs of Jason’s. “Well, there’s Starfire,” he says breathlessly. “Babs, Zatanna, a couple of people you don’t know. Bruce, obviously. That one time with Hal-”

“Wait, _ Hal Jordan_?”

Dick has the grace to blush, squeezing Jason’s hands almost apologetically. “It was during an off-world mission,” he explains. “There was magic involved and we were both in heat. It wasn’t the most ideal situation but it _ was _ a good experience.”

Jason purses his lips, feeling- not exactly sure _ what _ he’s feeling about that, but it’s not anger, at least. It’s possibly a fond kind of annoyance, because it’s not like he hadn’t known Dick’s long list of exes and lovers. It’s just who Dick is, and Dick’s ability to love people - the good in people, no matter how deep down it’s buried - is one of the reasons Jason loves _ him_.

But Hal Jordan though? 

“Jordan’s only requirements are ‘alive’ and ‘willing’, so I wouldn’t take any compliment from him as a testament to your ability in bed,” Jason sniffs, earning an almost relieved laugh from Dick. “And if they’re all singing your praises, why didn’t any of them claim you?”

He almost regrets making that joke, because Dick’s laugh peters off to be replaced by a sad smile. “Didn’t say anything about my relationship prowess,” he says idly, taking a firmer hold of Jason’s hands and pulling them up to kiss the knuckles of Jason’s fingers. “It takes a special kind of crazy to put up with me, little wing.”

Jason feels his heart skip a beat, but instead of apologizing like he wants to, his mouth works before his brain can stop it, asking, “And what happens if it turns out I’m not crazy enough?”

Dick’s eyes are as sad as his smile when he looks into Jason’s, and Jason finds himself being pulled down, until he’s back on the bed, on his side, facing Dick.

“There’s more than enough crazy between the two of us,” Dick says reassuringly, pecking Jason’s nose. “Plus, I already claimed you. No take-backs and no returns, Jay.”

Jason smiles back without realizing it, and Dick shuffles closer, throwing an arm over Jason’s shoulder and tucking Jason’s head in under his chin. Jason breathes in Dick’s scent on his collarbone, his eyes fluttering closed as he takes in the mint, the saccharine sweetness of his own daffodils underneath that.

And then a thought occurs to him, and his mouth does that _ thing _ again and he’s asking, “Who’s Catalina?”

He feels Dick tensing against him before he smells Dick’s apprehension and distress, and Jason pulls away quickly, almost knocking his head against Dick’s chin. He sits up, at the same time Dick does, except Dick pulls his knees up to his chest and stares at Jason, wide-eyed, like he’s seeing a ghost.

“How do you know her?” he asks, his voice trembling.

Jason’s never seen him like this, and he curses his goddamn mouth, swallowing down the lump in his throat and the regret stirring in his chest. “You said her name, when you tried to kill me in your sleep,” he says, careful to keep his tone neutral.

Dick relaxes visibly at the explanation, but his scent is still sour with anxiety, and Jason knows he’s lying when he says, “She was just a fling. Nothing serious.”

“Do you usually want to kill people you’ve had a _ fling _ with?”

Dick flinches, shaking his head. “It’s not- it’s not like that.”

He wraps his arms around himself and shuts his eyes, seeming to be concentrating on just breathing and controlling his scent. Concern gnaws at Jason, but he’s not sure if getting close to Dick right now would help or make him worse.

Before Jason can decide what to do, Dick’s eyes open again, at the same time his scent smoothens to something less overwhelming, more natural. But still just that side of upset.

“I’m sorry,” Dick says, even though that’s Jason’s line. “I shouldn’t have- I overreacted.”

Jason nods once, and cautiously reaches a hand out across the bed, waiting until Dick reaches back for him before he moves closer and pulls Dick into his arms, just- holding him. Grounding him.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” Jason says into Dick’s hair, breathing in his scent again. “But if you- we can talk about it, Dick. If you want to.”

Dick doesn’t say anything, clinging at Jason like he’s the only thing keeping him there, and Jason lets him without another word. He’s not sure how long they stay like that before Dick finally breaks the silence.

“It was when you- you know. Before you… died.”

It’s testament to how far Jason’s come with his sessions with Dinah that he barely feels anything at the mention of his own death, and instead, he plants a kiss against the side of Dick’s head and breathes, “Go on,” as encouragingly as he’s capable.

Dick lets out a quiet exhale, turning his head into the curve of Jason’s throat. “You know about Blockbuster?” he asks.

Jason hums an affirmative; he’d read about it, briefly, while he’d been stewing in Venezuela and digging up every single damn thing he remotely could on Bruce and the rest of his Bats. It’d been perfunctory at best, and he hadn’t thought much of it at the time.

“I killed him.”

_ Okay_. What the hell?

“Not like that,” Dick hastily explains, squeezing Jason’s arm. “It was- it’s complicated. Catalina- she killed him, but for me. She killed Blockbuster because she thought it was doing me a favour and I- I didn’t stop her, Jason. I could’ve stopped her but I didn’t. I- I _ wanted _ her to.”

_ Jesus Christ_.

“And afterwards, she came onto me, and I didn’t stop her then, either.”

A million and one thoughts race through Jason’s mind, every single one of them accompanied by the same blinding, encompassing fury that had driven him in his crusade against Bruce, and the one thought Jason latches onto is-

“Where is she now?”

Dick huffs out a wry laugh, releasing Jason’s arm to cup his jaw instead, pressing his lips against Jason’s skin. The touch and the contact drown out the voices that scream at Jason to wrought vengeance for his mate, but only enough for Jason to remember that Dick needs him right now.

“Gone,” Dick says quietly. “I threw her out of Blüdhaven, and she hasn’t come back since. I don’t know if she’s still out there or not, but she at least she knows better than to show up around me.” In a quieter voice, vulnerable and fearful, he adds, “I never told Bruce about it. You- a month later, Alfred called me.” _ You died_, goes unsaid.

A month before he’d died. Jason does the math, thinks about the time then, recalls the memories before the Joker had taken him. _While_ the Joker had had him.

“That’s why you stopped coming back,” he says, his eyes closing. More regret piles onto him, self-loathing and guilt. He’d always thought- he’d died, thinking that Dick had just- he’d just forgotten about Jason, that he’d actually lied about not caring that Jason’s an alpha, that he'd stopped coming home because he'd actually hated him, that- 

But. That’s done now. It’s in the past. Dinah’s been working on helping Jason to _ let go_, and Jason’s been trying. This- it’s not about _ him_, it’s about Dick.

“Dick,” he says, opening his eyes again, pulling away so that he can turn Dick around to face him. Dick’s eyes are wide and glinting with unshed tears, and Jason kisses his cheeks and his lips and looks back into his terrified gaze and says, as firmly as he’s ever said anything, “It wasn’t your fault. None of what happened was your fault. Tell me you understand that.”

Dick’s lips part, but a sob tumbles out before any words do, and then he’s breathing raggedly through his nose and wiping at his eyes almost violently. “I know,” he says, hoarse and thick with emotion.

Jason knows that’s a lie too, but Dick sniffs and stares at him and says, “As long as _ you _ know that whatever you did with the Scarecrow, with Talia- with any of them. None of it was your fault either, Jason.”

Jason recoils like he’d been burnt, and it _ feels _ like he has - hot, burning anger and indignation, crawling over his skin like a brand- like _ the brand_. He doesn’t get far, not when Dick grabs his shoulder with one hand and cups at his scarred cheek with the other, and holds him in place.

“I _ know_, little wing,” Dick coos softly, searching his eyes. “I know, it’s okay. I just- I get it. I just want you to know that _ I get it_.”

Jason’s first instinct is to punch him. To tell him that _ no, he doesn’t fucking get it_, but- but a part of him also knows that Dick’s right. Dick _ does _ get it, because Jason gets it too. Jason’s not sure if it’s irony or just fate being a fucking bitch to them as always, but what he _ does _ know is that he loves Dick, and he’s pretty fucking sure that Dick loves him back.

So he tells him as much.

“I love you, you fucking idiot,” and Dick laughs quietly, helplessly, pulling Jason in close and kissing his common sense out from his mouth. “Even if I’m going to get you killed one day,” Jason adds when they break apart.

“If anyone’s going to die, it’ll be you,” Dick says wryly, that self-deprecating smile making its appearance on his pretty face. “Considering my track record.”

He brings a hand up over Jason’s mouth when Jason tries to protest, and shakes his head. “But it doesn’t matter,” Dick says, his smile widening and softening into something sweeter. “Because I love you too, and we make each other happy and that’s all that really fucking matters, doesn’t it?”

Jason scowls at him, pushing the hand away irritably, but Dick just laughs at his expression. “You’re such a fucking idiot,” Jason says. “And a sap. A bag of cavity-inducing sap.”

Dick pouts briefly, then runs his fingers down Jason’s chest before resting his palm meaningfully over Jason’s groin, leaning closer with half-lidded eyes. “_Your _ sap on the last day of his heat,” he says against Jason’s lips. “So get your goddamn knot in me right now before I burn your favourite copy of Pride and Prejudice.”

Jason growls in response, grabbing Dick’s wrist and flipping their positions until he’s straddling Dick again, except this time, he’s got both Dick’s hands pinned on either side of his head.

“It’s my _ only _ copy,” he mutters before diving down for another brief, biting kiss. “And who says I’m topping again, you lazy bastard?”

They don’t leave the bed at all that day, even though Dick’s heat is over and Jason’s isn’t for another week, but Dick’s happy laughter stays with him, together with their scents combined, and Jason can’t bring himself to care about much of anything else.


End file.
